


Glitter

by EricaStorm



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Model Harry, Recreational Drug Use, Writer Zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-04 02:27:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 58,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EricaStorm/pseuds/EricaStorm
Summary: Once the golden boy of the English literary scene, now a clinically depressed writer of pulp crime fiction, Zayn Malik has given up on love, hope, happiness, and—most of all—himself. He lives his life between the cycles of his illness, haunted by the ghosts of other people’s expectations.Then a chance encounter at a stag party throws him into the arms of Harry Styles, an aspiring model who lives in a world of hair gel, fake tans, and fashion shows. By his own admission, Harry isn’t the crispest lettuce in the fridge, but he cooks a mean cottage pie and makes Zayn laugh, reminding him of what it’s like to step beyond the boundaries of anxiety.But Zayn has been living in his own shadow for so long that he can’t see past the glitter to the light. Can a man who doesn’t trust himself ever trust in happiness? And how can a man who doesn’t believe in happiness ever fight for his own?





	1. Chapter 1

Zayn’s heart is beating so fast it’s going to trip over itself and stop. Everything is hot and dark. He feels like he’s been buried alive. Or he’s already dead.

He barely has just enough grip on reality to discard these notions, but it doesn’t quell his horror. His mouth is dry, strange and sour, his tongue thick as carpet. Alcohol-heavy breath drags itself out of his throat, the scent of it churning his own stomach. He’s pickled in sweat. And there’s an arm across his chest, a leg across his legs. Zayn is manacled in flesh.

_God, god, fuck, god, fuck._

His body is far too loud. Blood roaring, heart thundering, breath screaming, stomach raging, head pounding.

He knows he’s about to have a full-blown panic attack.

The first in a long time. Not much consolation.

Where was he? What has he . . .

_Out, fuck, have to get out._

Zayn twists away from the arm and the leg, rolling off a bare mattress onto the bare floorboards. Maybe his first instinct was right. He is dead and this is hell. The darkness scrapes against his eyes. Where are the rest of his clothes?

And breathe, he needs to breathe more. Or breathe less. Stop the light show in his head. His vision sheets red and black, like a roulette wheel spinning too fast, never stopping.

_God, fuck, clothes._

Scattered somewhere in the void. Trousers, shirt, belt, jacket, a single sock. His fingers close over his phone. A cool, calming talisman.

Half-dressed, everything else bundled in his arms, Zayn eases open the door, dark spilling into the dark and, like Orpheus, he’s looking back. The shadows move across man’s face, but he doesn’t stir. He sleeps the perfect, heedless sleep of children, drunkards, and fools.

Zayn’s footsteps creak along a narrow hallway of peeling paintwork and he lets himself out onto a wholly unfamiliar street.

              

 

_Breathe, just keep breathing. Keep breathing, and get away._

Zayn stumbled down the pavement, the awfulness of this-this and everything — hanging off his shoulders like a rucksack full of rocks.

Still no idea where he was. Suburbia spiraling away in all directions. And, at the horizon, a haze of pale light where the distant sea met the distant sky. He fumbled for my phone. 3:41.

_God, fuck, god._

There was a single blip of battery left. He called Louis. He didn’t answer. So Zayn called again. And this time he did. Zayn didn’t wait for him to speak.

“I don’t know where I am.” His voice rang too high even in his own ears.

“Zayn?” Louis sounded strange. “What do you mean? Where are you?”

“I just said. I don’t know. I . . . I’ve been stupid. I need to get home.”

Zayn’s breathing was going wrong again.

“Can’t you call a cab?”

“Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know the number. What if it doesn’t come? I don’t know.” Anxieties were swimming around inside him like jellyfish, but he was usually better at not confessing them aloud.

It hadn’t occurred to Zayn to get a taxi, but even the idea of it seemed overwhelming in its magnitude. A quagmire of the potential disaster that was utterly terrifying.

“Can you come and get me?” he asked.

Later Zayn would see how pathetic it was, his desperate pleading, the weasel thread of manipulative weakness running through my words. Later, he would remember that calling for a taxi was an everyday event, not an ordeal beyond reckoning. Later, yes, later he would drown in shame and hate himself.

A hollow sigh gusted over the line. “Oh God, Zayn, can’t you—”

“No, no, I can’t. Please, I need to go home.”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming. Can you at least find a street sign? Give me some idea where you are?”

Phone clutched in his sweat-slick hand, Zayn ran haphazardly along the houses. The curtains were shut as tight as eyes.

“Marlborough Street,” he said. “Marlborough Street.”

“All right. I’ll be there. Just . . . I’ll be there.”

Zayn sat down on a wall to wait, irrational panic eventually giving way to a dull pounding weariness. There was a packet of cigarettes in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t supposed to have cigarettes, but he was already so fucked that he lit one, grey smoke curling lazily into the grey night.

Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t forget to take your medication, don’t break your routine. Nobody had ever explicitly said, “Don’t have casual sex with strange men in unfamiliar cities,” but it was probably covered in the “Don’t have any fun ever” clause. The truth was, casual sex was about the only sex Zayn could stand these days. On his own terms, when he could control everything. And himself.

But tonight he’d broken all the rules and he was going to pay the price. He could feel it, the slow beat of water against the crumbling cliffs of his sanity. He was going to crash. I was going to crash so hard and deep it would feel as though there was nothing inside of him but despair. The cigarette, at least, might hold it off until he got home.

Zayn lost track of time, his nerves deadened with nicotine and his skin shivering with cold. But, eventually, Louis pulled up and leaned across the seats to thrust open the passenger door.

“Come on,” he said.

His shirt was halfway unbuttoned and tousled, a pattern of dark red bruise-kisses running from elbow to shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” Zayn stamped out his cigarette (how many had he smoked?) and climbed in.

He didn’t reply, just shifted gears abruptly and drove off. Zayn rested his head against the window, watching the streets of Brighton blurring at the corners of his eyes. The motorway, when they came to it, was nothing but a streak of moving darkness.

Louis’ fingers were tapping a tense rhythm against the steering wheel. He’d known Zayn since university, back when he was different. They had been friends, lovers, partners, and now this. Pilgrim and burden.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn tried again.

Silence filled up the car, mingling with the darkness.

“You can’t keep doing this to me,” Louis said, finally. “You’re . . . it’s . . . ruining my life.”

“You seem to be doing a pretty good job of ruining your own.” Zayn turned away from the window. Touched a piece of shadow on his upper arm that might have been a mark. “I suppose you were with Liam.”

Zayn had never meant to hurt to Louis, but it had been inevitable that he would. In some ways, that only made it worse, as though he’d been careless with something precious. The truth was, sometimes Zayn found it hard to even like him anymore. Louis had seen him at his worst, but that only made Zayn feel resentful and ashamed as if the memories of a thousand mortifications were lurking behind his eyes like a swarm of silver fish.

“So what if I was?” Louis said.

“He’s going to be married.”

It had made a certain amount of sense that Louis and he would get together when they let Zayn out of the hospital after his first manic episode. Louis had made him feel something close to human again, and it had been easy enough for Zayn to confuse gratitude with love. He didn’t know what Louis had been looking for. Absolution, perhaps. Of course, he was still in love with Liam. He always had been. Zayn was supposed to have been his consolation prize, but he turned out to be a poor bargain.

“He can still change his mind.” There was an ironic twist to Louis’ mouth as he spoke, but Zayn could tell he half believed it was a possibility.

“He’s not going to change his mind. He wants to be with Sophia.”

“Filthy bisexuals,” Louis muttered. Like all their jokes, it was an old one, and it had stopped being funny a long time ago.

Zayn tried to smile, but it felt like too much effort and his mouth refused to cooperate. Louis and Liam had slept with each other intermittently at university as part of a general culture of everyone sleeping with everyone, but Liam’s liberality with his cock protected a heart that loved only cautiously.

“You need to stop waiting for him,” Zayn said.

“Fuck you.”

“Right.”

There didn’t seem much else he could say to that.

“If you love someone, then you fight for them.” Louis’ eyes were locked on the road.

“Or you let them go before you fuck up their life.”

Louis laughed, sharp as knives. “That’s fucking hilarious coming from you.”

Zayn closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the peace of private darkness.

“You can’t get through a night out without phoning me,” Louis said.

Zayn couldn’t do this now, but a sour sense of injustice filled the back of my throat like vomit. “I didn’t want to come.”

“Can’t you think about somebody else for half a fucking second? Liam wanted you here.”

“Ah, yes, Liam. Always back to Liam.” Zayn had no idea why he said that.

The needle on the speedometer was trembling. Eighty. Ninety. Zayn didn’t think Louis had even noticed. The engine thrummed heavy through the fresh silence.

“So when you went completely batshit,” Louis said, conversationally. “And I visited you in the fucking loony bin nearly every day. That was about Liam, was it? And when I found you in the hallway unconscious and covered in blood. That was about Liam? And all the times you’ve been too depressed to eat or leave the fucking house and I’ve come to take care of you. That was about Liam? Every time I’ve stopped you hurting yourself. Liam. Making sure you didn’t get institutionalized again. Liam. Picking up your medication for you when you can’t. Liam. Getting you to counseling. Liam.”

“God,” Zayn said, petulant as a child, “if I’m such a horrendous waste of your time, why do you bother?”

Once upon a time he might have said: Because I love you.

Once upon a time he might have said: Because I care about you.

“Because I feel guilty all the fucking time,” Louis snapped. “And because the last time I didn’t bother, you tried to kill yourself.”

The words echoed through Zayn’s head. He tugged at his cuffs, pulling them down until they hung over the heels of his hand. One of the unadvertised advantages of bespoke tailoring. All his shirts were cut this way.

“That had nothing to do with you,” he said quietly.

Louis didn’t answer.

And now there really was nothing left to say.

The night ebbed slowly away, fading into a silver-grey London dawn. The rising sun gleamed dully from behind a sheet of heavy cloud, casting vague-shaped shadows across the sky like images from a magic lantern.

Louis dropped him off outside his flat and drove away like a man determined not to look back. Zayn let himself inside and climbed the stairs. He’d always found something comforting in repetitive physical action. It provided an anchor point when all other certainties were uncertain. He felt sodden with exhaustion, weighed down by his own flesh and at the same time insubstantial, as though his fingers would unravel into mist if he stopped concentrating on being alive.

Zayn carefully fit his key to the lock, turned it, heard it click. Pushed open the door. Stepped inside. Let the door swing closed behind him. The familiarity of walls.

Normal people didn’t sit in their hallways. But Zayn couldn’t find the energy to go further. He lay down on the floor, stretched his fingers over the stripped wooden floorboards, rough and smooth, knots and whorls, the occasional deep gash like a scar. He was terrified of thinking. Terrified of memory. He wanted to cry, but he had long ago run out of tears.

In the past, they are drinking tea in Zayn’s oak-paneled rooms, where the wisteria creeps beneath the arched windows, filling the air with scent.

In the past, Liam and Louis are dancing at the center of a sea of flesh beneath multicolored lights.

In the past, Zayn walks between green lawns, surrounded by golden stone.

In the past, he is brilliant and he is happy and his every tomorrow is madness.

In the past, words shimmer around Zayn on silver threads and he plucks them like summer peaches.

In the past, the universe is a glitterball he holds in the palm of his hand. He is the axis of the world.

In the past, he is soaring, and falling, and breaking, and lost.

Then there are grey walls all around, a sullen haze of medication where minutes and months lose all their meaning.

Afterward, Zayn performed the halting ceremony of betterness in a crawl of grey days. Somehow, he started writing again, laying words out like cutlery. Louis moved in. And then out again.

And now there was this. And yesterday.


	2. Chapter 2

It was Liam’s stag night, and Zayn had failed to get out of it. He’d had a lot of practice in letting his friends down, but unfortunately, Louis knew all his stratagems. His usual technique involved accepting invitations with a convincing display of pleasure and gratitude, then demonstrating his commitment to attend by buying tickets, confirming bookings, and pretending to read all the emails (Zayn didn’t see this as a waste of time and money, so much as an investment in his future comfort), and finally pulling out—with great regret—at the very last minute. Everyone always understood. They had no other choice.

Zayn left Louis a message about half an hour after he should have departed for Brighton, explaining that he didn’t feel up to going out tonight. It wasn’t even a lie. The only thing he’d misrepresented was the likelihood of him ever feeling up to going out.

But then Louis turned up at the flat, let himself in with the key Zayn still hadn’t taken back, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He called it a last hurrah. For who, or what, Zayn wasn’t sure. The people they used to be, perhaps.

And that was how, against his wishes and his better judgment, Zayn ended up in Brighton. In a gay bar. At a stag party. Arranged for the groom by his best friend. Who was in love with him. And Zayn thought he knew hell.

It was a Friday night, so the whole place was packed. Dancers had over-spilled the dance floor, their pressed-together bodies pulsating into all the empty spaces of the club, and the LEDs on the ceiling streamed overhead like a million multicolored stars, falling and dying and shattering in fleeting, stained glass fragments on the bodies below. A twist of electric blue glinted on an upraised wrist. A smear of wild green across a throat. Cracks of pink and purple spilled with a glitter of perspiration down someone’s bare chest. An impossible entangling of space and skin, light and shadow.

They were playing the sort of deep, delirious electro-house Zayn hadn’t sought out in years. A thumping heartbeat of sex and sound, the drug to unite all drugs, the music of my mania. Even now, watching the grace of strangers from an endless distance, he felt a faint and faraway echo of something like pleasure, as though some long-lost, once-loved visitor was knocking on a door that no longer opened.

“Do I know you?” A voice from beside him broke through the music.

Zayn didn’t even turn. “No, I don’t think so.”

They had the VIP area upstairs, away from the crush, and in easy reach of the cocktail bar. Louis had assembled them all here for drinks and drunken jokes, but by now, most of the party had dispersed into the crowd like waves lost in the sea. Zayn was standing half in the shadows, his elbows folded on the railing, watching without interest what was happening below. He could just about make out Liam and Louis dancing together and, in another corner, a couple of Liam’s merchant banker friends enthusiastically getting off.

“Are you sure? You look familiar. How do you know Liam?”

Hints, it seemed, were not going to be taken any time soon. Zayn cast a quick, grudging glance at his relentless interlocutor. Brown hair, blue eyes, a whimsical bracket to his wide mouth. Good arms. His type, once upon a time. And now? Nothing.

“We were at university together,” Zayn said.

“So was I!” He sounded genuinely thrilled about it. “Oh, I’m Eric, by the way, Eric Johnson.”

Zayn performed a sort of half-arsed wave to discourage any handshaking and volunteered nothing further. Conversations are like fires; they tend to sputter out if you deprive them of air.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” he said.

“Zayn. Malik.”

“Wait,” he cried, “I do remember! I read your book. What was it called? The smoke and the something?”

He gazed at Zayn expectantly.

“The Smoke Is Briars.”

“Yes! It was wonderful. I loved it. It was quite weird though, no offense. Is that what they call magic realism? Like that Spanish bloke.”

Colombian. “Yes,” Zayn said. “Just like that.”

He felt unspeakably tired, but Niall was still talking, his interest flattening me like a cartoon steamroller.

“What else have you written? Won the Booker yet? Hah.”

“I don’t write anymore,” Zayn lied.

“Oh, no, really? But you were so talented. You should take it up again.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not? It’s not often that queer literature finds a mainstream audience. Your team needs you.”

“I have nothing to say.”

Eric gave him the familiar blank, bewildered look that told him Zayn had finally succeeded in putting the conversation out of its misery.

“Want a drink?” Niall asked.

Alcohol played merry hell with Zayn’s medication. “God, yes.”

He grinned. “Actually, I’ve got something even better, if you like?”

Zayn raised his eyebrows. “I hope that’s not a pickup line.”

Eric blushed. He was Zayn’s age at least but he seemed centuries younger. “Well, we can if you like. I mean, I’d be up for it. But it’s kind of one or the other.”

He opened his palm and Zayn caught a flash of a familiar, chalky-white pill.

“I’ll take that,” he said.

Maybe Eric looked disappointed. Zayn didn’t care.

“Catch you on the dance floor.” Eric slipped him the E and wandered off.

Drugs were even worse for Zayn than alcohol but, in some ways, so much better. What he held between his fingers was a little piece of happiness. Artificial, yes. Fleeting, yes. But then he wasn’t sure if there was any other kind. And beggars can’t be choosers.

Zayn was playing games with himself, putting up a show of resistance, as if he could take it or leave it. But the truth was, whatever the price, he would gladly pay it just to feel . . . better. Connected. Human. Alive. Anything at all.

A hand closed hard around my wrist.

“What the fuck are you doing?” roared Louis. “Are you fucking insane?”

Louis was probably hurting him, but Zayn was too far from himself for it to breach the numbness of his skin. “Well, yes. I have a note from my doctor.”

“You can’t fucking take drugs. You know what’ll happen.”

Zayn flicked the tablet from one hand to the other, snatching it from the air before Louis could intercept. Louis’ body was behind him, so it felt almost like it did when he used to hold Zayn, his arms tight around him as if an embrace could circumscribe a world, define a reality. Zayn half turned his head so he could look up at him.

“It’s just this once.” Zayn’s voice was a wavering chord of desperation. “It’ll be fine.”

“No.”

“It’s not up to you.”

His hand caught Zayn’s other wrist. “I’m not going to let you hurt yourself.”

“That’s not up to you either.”

But Louis pinned him and twisted his fingers open. For a moment, the little round tablet seemed to cling to Zayn’s skin, as though it wanted him as much as he wanted it, and then it slipped and fell. It pinged off the railing and bounced away into the writhing crowd. Such a pathetic tragedy, it should have been comical. Disappointment drowned Zayn in a grey flood, bitter as ashes and sharp as briars.

Mission accomplished, Louis let him go so abruptly it felt as though he’d detached Zayn from the entire world. He had a brief, intense sensation of falling and clutched for the sweaty brass of the railing.

“You’re such a prick,” Zayn muttered, but it was the defiance of the defeated.

“So are you,” he said without any particular rancor.

For a moment or two, Louis stood next to him, resting against the railing. Broken rainbows skittered over the lightly curling hair of his forearms. His attention landed on Liam, who was by the bar below them, laughing with one of his friends. His T-shirt clung to him, sweat defining the strong planes of his back.

Sophia made him happy. It was something Louis should have easily understood, but the heart rejects the lostness of things. And Zayn was grieving, not for his friend, not for the past, but, selfishly, for a piece of fake white happiness. Well, he picked his battles. Once you’ve lost your mind, you’re on a non-stop superhighway to dispossession of the self: trust, pride, control, dignity, respect, the right to fuck yourself up when you damn well please.

“I’m going to get a drink,” he said.

“Zayn.”

“Are you going to stop me?”

Louis shook his head.

Ten minutes and half a cocktail later, Zayn was wankered in a completely disorientating, pleasureless way. All the physical effects of being drunk hit him like a train, but it was accompanied only by the escalating sense of foreboding that tends to signal incoming depression. He overpaid for a bottle of water and went slowly back to his railing. The dancers below blurred with the lights, the music seemed only distant noise.

All the counseling in the world couldn’t teach him how to think rationally about his episodes, so Zayn feared them. He feared them with pure and primal instinct, like dreading the dark or flinching from fire. In all these years, this is all he has learned: Depression simply is. It has no beginning and no end, no boundaries and no world outside itself. It is the first, the last, the only, the alpha and the omega. Memories of better times die upon its desolate shores. Voices drown in its seas. The mind becomes its own prisoner.

Zayn pulled out his phone and checked the time. It was close to midnight, an entirely reasonable hour to slip away and fall apart in the safety of his own home. He leaned over the railing, looking for Louis, only to be arrested by a dazzle of silver through the haze of color-shifting shadows, bright like clean water. It took him a moment to realize it was the light catching on the epaulettes of a man dancing just below him.

Fuck knew what he was doing staring at someone who thought sparkly epaulettes were any sort of fashion statement but, God help him, Zayn was. Maybe it was the way he was dancing, eyes half closed, a half-smile on his lips, as though he honestly couldn’t think of anything better to do in the world than wriggle his hips to music. To be fair, he wriggled them most effectively, showing off the lines of a spare and slender, lightly muscled body.

He was a ridiculous creature. A vulgar, glittering pirate of a man, all jewellery and fake tan, gold glinting in his ears, on his fingers and round his wrists. His dark hair gleamed with product and had been painstakingly teased into straightness that defied taste, reason, and gravity. And Zayn couldn’t stop looking at him. It was horrifying but the truth was there, undeniable, like some faint sonic echo deep within his skin, the thin batsqueak of sexuality. Zayn wanted him.

What remained of him these days was a muted thing, a patchwork of broken pieces. His loved ones had all slipped away from him, disappearing into their future happiness, and still he felt nothing. Louis had not been, by any means, his only lover since the institution. But that his hollow flesh should answer the brazen alarum of a man who was wearing beneath his jacket a shirt that read “Sexy and I know it,” could only have been the sick joke of a universe that despised Zayn.

Suddenly he looked up at Zayn and grinned. An absurd, wide, endless grin filled with white teeth. And Zayn forgot how to breathe. He expected the boy to go back to dancing, but instead he climbed onto one of the floor speakers beneath Zayn’s balcony, pulling himself almost up to my eye level, like the world’s most ill-suited Romeo in pursuit of the world’s least convincing Juliet.

“I gotta say, babe,” he said in a typical Cheshire whine, “you’re giving me such a bedroom look.”

Zayn stared down into his face, so close to his own. Babe? And, dear God, that slow leisurely drawl.

“Well,” he heard himself say, “play your cards right and I might consent to do more than look.”

“You talk like the Queen.”

Zayn blinked. “Pardon?”

“Are you in parliament?”

Zayn had the feeling he’d lost control of the conversation. “What? No. I’m a writer.”

“Really?” He sounded both impressed and bewildered, as if Zayn had said that he went fishing on the moon. “What do you write?”

Zayn gave his standard answer. “Books.”

He threw back his head and laughed, as if Zayn had been genuinely funny. “You donut. What’s your name?”

“Z.J. Malik.”

“What, that’s your name?”

“Yes,” he said impatiently, “that’s my name.”

“That’s what people call you?”

“Yes?”

“Like in bed, or whatever? They call you Z.J. Malik?”

Zayn met his eyes. “No, in bed they call me God.”

He laughed again, the same uninhibited cackle. “Like it,” he said, except he drew out the syllables until the two words were barely recognisable as themselves. “But, seriously, babe, what’s your name? My nan told me not to go with a geeza what won’t tell you his name.”

“You’re going to . . . go with me?”

“I’m thinking about it,” he said, a trifle coyly for a man negotiating a one-night stand.

“Well, all right. I suppose you can call me Zayn.”

He told me his name but I didn’t bother to remember it.

“Come on then, Cheshire,” Zayn said. “Get your coat. You’ve pulled.”

His grin flashed through the gloom. “I’m already wearing it.”

To Zayn’s surprise, he reached up his hand, as though he expected Zayn to jump the railing. “I’ll go round,” Zayn said firmly.

“It’s alright, babe, I’ll catch you.”

“I’m not going to throw myself off a VIP balcony on the off chance a complete stranger won’t drop me.”

“We could’ve been home, the amount of time you’ve spent talking about it.”

“Fine,” Zayn snapped. “Fine.”

Zayn leaned over the railing and took his hand. His nails were painted silver to match his epaulettes. This could only end badly. Zayn scrambled gracelessly over the balcony and onto the speaker, which rocked under the impact of his landing and made him clutch at Cheshire like an utter fool. His laughter curled against Zayn’s ear, the heat of his body enfolding him in an embrace. Zayn shuddered. It was awful and lovely at the same time but before he could really begin to deal with the contradictions of his response, he had swung off the speaker and was pulling Zayn down after him.

“There you go, babe. That was alright, innit?”

Zayn was beginning to think Cheshire had a vocabulary of about a hundred words. Zayn must have been beyond hammered to be thinking about sleeping with him. Of course, it was possible Cheshire didn’t exist, but Zayn doubted even the extremity of his psychosis could have conjured such a man.

Cheshire took Zayn’s hand, actually took his hand, and led him outside.

Zayn cast a glance over his shoulder, looking for Louis out of long habit. Putting aside the possibility Cheshire was a hallucination, there was always the serial killer option.

“I’m not really from around here,” he volunteered. No shit. Brighton was the gay capital of England. No one here was from around here. Besides, with the accent, he might as well have been wearing a sticker that read I’m from Cheshire, ask me how. “I’m staying with a mate.”

He seemed to know where they were going, at least. They crossed the road and cut through a park, Brighton’s pale Georgian buildings gleaming on all sides.

“You don’t say a lot,” Cheshire observed.

“I have nothing to say.”

“Pity, you sound well nice.”

“You said I sounded like the Queen ten minutes ago.”

“Yeah, but like,” a thoughtful pause, “sexy with it.”

“Thank you.”

That should have been enough to quell any further exchanges but, somehow, he was still speaking.

“I love talking, me. I’ll talk to anyone. I’ll even talk to myself. Oh no, that makes me sound like a right mental.”

“It’s fine.” Zayn chose not to share the fact that he actually was a right mental.

“I just run on and on. It’s hard to get me to shut up, to be honest with you.”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

He gave a melodramatic gasp. “Ah, you’re so rude, babe.”

It seemed, however, to have done the trick and, to Zayn’s relief, they continued in silence. He didn’t want to have to think about what he was doing and he resented Cheshire’s clumsy attempts to have a conversation with him. They both knew how this worked. If Zayn had to endure any more of his banal confidences, it would surely extinguish the faint flare of desire he (inexplicably) harboured for Cheshire’s body. It had been so long since he’d felt anything like it that Zayn couldn’t bear the thought of losing it. Like a piece of broken glass worn smooth by the tide, it was a bright trinket washed up onto his monochrome shores.

They’d been walking less than ten minutes and Zayn had no idea where they were. But they seemed to be in the middle of the shopping district, which slightly reassured Zayn on the murderer front, unless Cheshire wanted to off him behind Superdrug. Zayn’s phone bleeped. It was Louis, of course, wanting to know if Zayn was all right. He closed down the message and silenced his phone.

“That your mates?” asked Cheshire.

“It’s not important.”

“You should tell them where you’re going. What if I’m like an axe murderer or something?”

“Then,” Zayn shrugged, “you’ll have axe murdered me before anybody has a chance to stop you.”

“Oh, yeah, didn’t think of that.” He brightened. “But they’d be able to tell the police who did it.”

“I’ll take my chances.” That was the point at which Zayn should have left it but, out of nowhere, some spirit of mischief (or masochism) seized him, and he added, “Besides, I could be the axe murderer.”

“Oh, I didn’t think of that.”

Cheshire stopped walking, chewing his lower lip as though he were wrestling with an intense, private dilemma. Or maybe it was just the effort of cogitation, Zayn couldn’t tell. Fuck, what had he done? Cheshire was going to change his mind, and where would that leave Zayn? Alone, without even the smouldering ashes of this incomprehensible wanting.

“I’m not an axe murderer,” Zayn said, urgently.

“That’s what you’d say if you were an axe murderer.”

“But . . . but I’m not.”

His raucous laugh exploded through the still night. “I didn’t really think you were, babe. And, anyway, where’d you get the axe this time of night?”

That . . . that . . . wanker. What was Cheshire trying to do to him? Zayn glared at him and that only made him laugh harder, his teeth flashing and his jewellery jingling.

“Your face!” he said happily.

“Fuck you.”

Cheshire gave another one of his theatrical gasps, eyes flying wide in a flurry of surprisingly long lashes. Then he nudged Zayn in the arm, as though he were inviting Zayn to share the terrific joke at Zayn’s own expense. Zayn pulled away impatiently. Whereupon the most oblivious man in Brighton hustled after him, leaned in, and—of all things—kissed Zayn on the cheek. It was so utterly unexpected that he didn’t have time to avoid it, and then Cheshire sauntered off like nothing had happened. Zayn’s skin burned with the memory of his lips, as though Cheshire had branded Zayn with his smile.

They kept walking. Around them the city glittered in shades of orange and silver, like a paste jewel in a tinfoil crown. The sky was a bruised swirl of blue and indigo, the air sharp-edged with salt. They passed a Waterstones advertising my forthcoming book. Zayn’s gaze recoiled and landed, instead, on the street sign above: Dyke Road.

“I know I shouldn’t,” said Cheshire, as though he’d read Zayn’s mind, “but it always makes me laugh.”

Zayn didn’t dignify that with an answer.

Cheshire prodded him in the arm. “You didn’t say what books you wrote.”

He’d noticed? He’d remembered? Urgh.

“No, I didn’t.”

“What, is it like porn?”

“No,” Zayn snapped, “it is not porn!”

Cheshire was laughing again.

“I write, sort of . . . crime,” Zayn said, to shut him up.

“That’s nice. Like that other guy. Dan Brown.”

The last forlorn relic of Zayn’s pride shattered on a street in Brighton.

“Not like Dan Brown,” he said.

“I read one of his coming back from Ibiza. I thought it was brilliant. To think he made all that up in his head.”

“That’s his job.”

“Yeah, he’s well good at it.” Cheshire paused and then offered, a little sheepishly, “I’m trying to get into modeling, me.”

Zayn cast a sideways glance at him. “You do surprise me.”

“Really?” Cheshire said, startled. “Cos it’s the first thing people say to me: ‘You should be a model, mate.’ I reckon it’s important to look nice. There’s lots of things you can’t change, but if you make an effort with how you look, then you’ll do alright, do you know what I mean?”

Zayn did not, in fact, know what Cheshire meant, but he made a noncommittal noise in the hope it would discourage further insights into the human condition.

“Some people think it’s a bit shallow, but what I think is that if you really like think hard about it, then you know . . . that’s alright.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Sorry, babe, I do run on.” Five seconds later: “Do you wanna see my catwalk?”

“Will you be quiet while you do it?”

“Course, babe.”

He sashayed off, starlight catching at his epaulettes. Zayn’s gaze slid down his spine in a caress as fervent as a sigh.

“Well, what do you think?” Cheshire stopped a few feet away and spun round to face Zayn.

His eyes—which had been riveted to Cheshire’s hips—flicked reluctantly back up. Cheshire smiled, a touch shyly, one side of his mouth quirking up a split second before the other.

“I’m honestly no judge, but I could watch you walk up and down all day.”

“Awww, babe, that’s proper sweet.”

Zayn stared at the ground, flustered.

“As a special reward, I’ll show you my pose.”

Zayn looked up in time to see Cheshire draping himself over one of the industrial wheelie bins standing nearby. He arched his back, sending a ripple of motion through his body like energy down a Slinky. His jacket slipped from one shoulder to reveal the bare skin and sleek muscles of his upper arm.

Zayn’s stomach twisted with pure and painful longing.

“You look very . . . very . . .” Zayn’s lips were dry. “Sinuous.”

“Like it. Sin-u-ous.”

“Well.” God, Zayn could barely speak. He swallowed lust. “It has the word sin in it.”

Cheshire wriggled his hips. “And you, babe.”

“And us for that matter.”

Cheshire grinned. “I can totally tell you’re a writer.”

Zayn couldn’t have said what fresh madness possessed him at that moment, but he pulled his phone out of his pocket and aimed the camera at him. Cheshire came to life beneath its harsh, silver-flashing eye, his body twisting to the music of the shutter. He was shameless in his skin. Ridiculous. And beautiful. Zayn watched the light as it slid down his bared throat.

Zayn’s hands were shaking so hard he had to stop.

“Let’s have a look,” Cheshire said.

He ambled back to Zayn and peered over his shoulder. He smelled of cologne and the faintest suggestion of sweat.

“They’re alright. Send them to me.”

Zayn didn’t think it was worth reminding Cheshire that Zayn didn’t actually know where to send them.

“The wheelie bin,” Zayn said, “is a particularly classy touch.”

“I thought it was alright actually. Sorta urban. Not like black urban. Just urban urban.”

“I think you mean grunge.”

“Oh, you’re so clever, babe.”

“Can we just go somewhere now and fuck? Without talking.”

“Calm down.” Cheshire grinned at him. “It’s just around the corner.”

They went round the corner onto a residential street that rose steeply along one of Brighton’s sudden, illogical hills. It was lined by prissy white-fronted cottages, the sort of self-consciously quaint dwellings that came with window boxes, balconettes, and jauntily painted shutters. It was not an auspicious location for a filthy, anonymous, homosexual liaison, and Zayn entertained the horrifying thought that Cheshire might be taking him home to meet his nan before Zayn remembered Cheshire was staying with friends. At last, we came to a huddled-over house with a wonky To Let sign and pile of bulging bin liners sitting outside it.

“Ah, where’s my key?” Cheshire said, trying unsuccessfully to insinuate a finger into the pocket of his skinny jeans.

Oh, for God’s sake. Surely not.

He caught sight of the look on Zayn’s face and started howling with laughter, staggering about on the pavement, almost doubled over with hilarity. Instead of putting all his clearly abundant energy into finding his fucking door key.

“It’s alright, babes, it’s alright,” he said, gasping for breath and hooking the key from a string around his neck. “Found it.”

Cheshire battled with the door for a moment or two, finally bashing it open with his shoulder. Zayn followed him into a narrow hallway, washed briefly and unprepossessingly orange from the street outside. A click signalled his attempt to turn on a light.

“Do you want something?” he said. “Like a tea or some water or something?”

“No, thank you.”

Cheshire opened one of the doors leading from the entrance hall and flicked on the light inside. A bare bulb hung from a pockmarked ceiling, illuminating knobbly, mismatched furniture and a bare mattress pushed against the peeling wall. There was an open, mostly empty suitcase on the floor, but its contents had been arranged with surprising care about the room. Lined up on the desk was an extensive arrangement of male grooming products. And hanging in plastic covers on a metal rail was a collection of clothing, amongst which sparkly epaulettes represented the epitome of restrained elegance.

Zayn turned the light off.

Cheshire turned it back on.

And Zayn turned it off again. His body had too many secrets for him to share them with strangers. And there were too many questions he didn’t like having to answer.

“Alright, babe,” Cheshire said gently, for once getting a fucking clue.

The darkness came between them, sealing Zayn safe inside his skin with the too-rapid rhythm of my heart. The thin curtains admitted only a faint glow from the street outside, enough to see the shape but not the certainty of things. Cheshire was just a shadow in the room, the shadow of a thing Zayn wanted, which was itself a shadow of wanting. But it was unspeakably sweet to feel even that, and terrifying to know how quickly it would pass. A moment inscribed on water, a memory that would fade to grey. Zayn was nothing but a ghost hunter, chasing the wraith of the man he used to be.

Zayn closed his eyes, adding dark to dark, and the wanting unfurled like the sails of a phantom ship. This could be his universe. This nowhere world, circumscribed by skin and breath, where nothing mattered but two bodies moving together. The past and the future rendered irrelevant by the beauty of the now, the sum of the self transmuted into a moment. Oh, was there ever a more seductive definition of madness? Behind his eyelids, Zayn saw him dancing in spirals of coloured light, emerald, blue, and brilliant purple, enfolding him like the wings of an electric angel.

Cheshire’s hand brushed against Zayn’s cheek. When had he moved close enough to touch Zayn? He caught Cheshire’s wrist and pulled his hand roughly up so Zayn could kiss his fingertips. Zayn half imagined he could taste the silver on his nails, as sharp as glitter in his mouth. Maybe when Cheshire touched him, colour would spill from his hands like heat. Zayn ran his tongue between Cheshire’s fingers and over the creases of his palm, drinking the pure, clean nothing of his skin. Zayn came to his wrist, pushing against the sleeve of his jacket, his lips catching on the delicate, jutting bones beneath the base of his thumb. Against Zayn’s opening mouth, Cheshire’s pulse thudded like a bass line. Heat swirled through Zayn and he leaned against the wall, clutching Cheshire’s hand and dizzy.

Zayn felt him move and turned his head to deflect Cheshire’s kiss so that it landed on the side of Zayn’s jaw instead of his mouth. It shimmered there briefly like some iridescent, impossible butterfly. Zayn dragged Cheshire’s hand to my hardening cock.

“I haven’t even got my coat off,” Cheshire said, but he still rubbed Zayn through his trousers, clumsy friction that sent shivers of frantic pleasure racing through his body. Zayn made a strange, desperate sound, his nails sinking into Cheshire’s wrist.

“Just . . . touch me.” It came out somewhere between directive and supplication. But what did it matter? What did any of it matter? Zayn would never see him again. Nobody would ever know. And Cheshire could think whatever he wanted, as long as he kept his hand moving against Zayn’s cock.

Suddenly, Cheshire caught Zayn’s chin and turned to face him.

“It’s alright to kiss me,” he said. “I haven’t got anything wrong with me.” Zayn didn’t need to see him to hear the smile in Cheshire’s voice, rich as honey.

Zayn had just enough time for a sound of protest before Cheshire kissed him. Oh God. It was beautiful. Zayn’s mouth opened under his, inviting the flood of heat that followed, the sweet-slick entanglement of tongues and breath. He reached up to pull Cheshire closer, Zayn’s hands sinking into his hair.

“Careful with that, babe.”

The dim light gleamed on his cheekbones. Up close like this, it was distractingly easy to lose himself in the mysteries of Cheshire’s face. Zayn shut his eyes and tried to find something to do with his hands. But then he was kissing Zayn again, driving him back against the wall. His arm was still pressed awkwardly between their bodies, his cock bumping arhythmically against Cheshire’s palm and against the wrist whose pristine, tender skin Zayn had tasted.

Zayn could feel Cheshire’s heart beating over his, just as quick and hard.

“Your hands,” Zayn muttered into his mouth. “Touch me with your hands.”

Cheshire made a soft sound Zayn couldn’t interpret and couldn’t be bothered to think about, and his fingers fumbled at Zayn’s trousers. Zayn bit at his mouth in heedless impatience and then bit him again when Cheshire got his hand partially round him. Cool skin to burning, his palm as soft as falling snow, his grip exactly as hard as Zayn needed, it was the sort of relief that becomes its own torture. It was so unbearably exquisite that Zayn had to pull away from his mouth. He pressed his face into Cheshire’s neck, shuddered and moaned. And when that wasn’t enough, Zayn dug his fingers into Cheshire’s biceps, hard enough that he felt the flesh yield even through his jacket.

It was a helpless free fall into pleasure. But Cheshire held me up, his other arm wound about Zayn’s waist. And Zayn let him, and he didn’t care. Zayn could have come like this, thrusting himself into Cheshire’s hand, his every breath sobbing out its ugly symphony into his oblivious skin. Zayn lifted his head, eyes opening long enough to see the way Cheshire’s lashes cast shadows over his cheeks, his pale, kiss-swollen lips.

“Fuck me,” Zayn said, grabbing his wrist.

In the sudden stillness of our bodies, Zayn realised the heat against his hip was the outline of Cheshire’s cock pressing against his jeans. It couldn’t have been comfortable.

“Oh . . . err . . .” Cheshire said, unsteadily. “Yeah, alright.”

Tearing at their clothes, they tumbled onto the mattress, sending it into a wild skid across the floor. Cheshire landed on Zayn, cackling breathlessly like they were at the fairground. Irritating. But the pressure of Cheshire’s body against his was bliss itself. He pushed himself to his knees and threw the jacket off his shoulders, followed by his T-shirt. Zayn gazed up at the thick bands of shadow that streaked his torso as he moved. It was like looking at him through the bars of a prison cell and he suddenly regretted the lack of light. Zayn reached up and stroked his hands over Cheshire’s shoulders, curving his palms about Cheshire’s shoulder blades. His skin was as smooth as the hidden interior of a shell and as supple as velvet as it flowed over the taut muscles of his back.

Cheshire made another of his soft, uncertain noises and then clambered to his feet. In tantalising silhouette, Zayn watched him yank off his boots and wriggle out of his jeans. Zayn peeled off his own jacket and and threw it aside.

“You always wear all that?” Cheshire asked, tugging off Zayn’s trousers and, with them, thankfully, his boxers—which Zayn had just remembered were silk, with a garish pattern of peacock feathers. They’d been a joke gift from Louis, back when they had jokes. A poor laundry ethic, and a conviction that nobody would see them, had been the only factors that had induced Zayn to wear them tonight.

“Yes,” Zayn said, plucking at the buttons on my shirt. “All the time. Even in the bath.”

Cheshire was laughing again, as his hands covered Zayn’s and finished the job for him. Zayn didn’t like being naked with strangers, which was awkward because he rather liked fucking them, but the darkness felt as cool and light as another layer of skin, keeping Zayn safe from his eyes. Zayn flung a leg over Cheshire’s hip and pulled him down on top of him. The naked heat of his body against Zayn’s was nothing short of rapturous. Sinuous had been entirely correct. He was a silken serpent of a man. Oh, God. Arching up, Zayn rubbed himself against Cheshire with all the finesse of a rutting hog, sparks of light dancing across his vision.

“Wow,” he said, in the hushed voice most people reserved for art galleries or churches, “you really want it, babe.”

“Yes,” Zayn said, not caring and clinging to him. “Yes. I really want it. Now fuck me.”

“Let me get something.”

Forgetting his earlier warning, Zayn twisted his fingers through Cheshire’s hair, ruining whatever was left of his hair. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Gotta be safe, babe.”

Zayn spread his legs under him and thrust his cock against Cheshire’s, making him gasp. “Don’t let me go.”

Cheshire kissed him. Zayn didn’t know what he was aiming for but, in the gloom and the confused tangle of their bodies, it landed on his nose. “I won’t,” he whispered, dragging himself out of Zayn’s arms. A pathetic noise clawed out Zayn’s throat. “I’m just over here.”

Zayn shivered, cold without him, newly lost.

He heard Cheshire’s feet scampering urgently across the room and then, from somewhere off to the right, there came the sort of sound a six-foot man might make falling over a pair of shoes. “Oh, no,” he said.

And then something very strange happened.

It was like a piece of Zayn snapped into, or out of, alignment.

He laughed.

An awful, rusty noise that made Zayn cover his mouth in shock.

“Shut up!” protested Cheshire from somewhere on the floor, but he didn’t sound as if he minded.

Except Zayn couldn’t seem to stop. He curled into a ball on the mattress, shaking and laughing.

“I said shut up.” Cheshire was back, his body curving round Zayn’s, his breath warm against Zayn’s neck. “Or I won’t.”

“W-won’t what?”

“What you said.”

“Fuck me?”

“Yeah.”

“You can say it, you know. You won’t get arrested.”

“My mum would have a fit if I went on like that. It doesn’t cost anything to be polite. Oh, no, I’m talking about my mum in like . . . when we’re . . . like . . . you know. That isn’t right.”

Cheshire twisted Zayn’s upper body towards him and hooked an arm around his neck, pulling Cheshire’s mouth onto his for a damp, ungainly kiss. “Cheshire,” Zayn said, against his lips, “would you please, and mother permitting, be so very kind as to fuck me senseless?”

Zayn felt Cheshire’s shuddery exhale against my lips. “Hundred percent.”

Zayn flipped onto his stomach, and Cheshire covered him like sunlight in a rush of warm skin. There was enough strength in his lean body for Zayn to feel it as Cheshire’s weight pressed him down. The springs in the mattress dug into Zayn’s chest. His lips ghosted over the tops of Zayn’s shoulders, sprinkling pleasure as ephemeral as stardust over his skin, and Zayn squirmed back against him, grinding his arse against Cheshire’s cock.

“God, fuck, do it.”

Cheshire drew back a little. Then came the sound of tearing foil, the snap-snap of a bottle. Lubed fingers stroked Zayn lightly and he thrust himself onto them. Not enough, not nearly enough.

“For fuck’s sake,” Zayn snarled.

The flat of his hand between Zayn’s shoulder blades shoved him back down.

“Don’t wanna hurt you, babe.”

“But—” At that moment, Cheshire twisted his fingers sharply inside Zayn and whatever he had been intending to say was lost in a harsh gasp of pleasure. Cheshire withdrew and did it again, and this time Zayn cried out in exquisite frustration. It was so close to what Zayn wanted. His hands clenched and unclenched against the mattress. “Oh, God, Cheshire, please.”

His fingers vanished, replaced by the head of his cock, pushing into Zayn. He was careful, excruciatingly careful, but it had been long enough that even the stretch and burn of this slow penetration made Zayn shudder and moan with the sweet intensity of violation. He lifted his hips to force Cheshire deeper.

“You alright?” Cheshire muttered. A few drops of skin-warmed sweat landed on Zayn’s spine. He felt each one as clearly as if it were a diamond.

Zayn opened his mouth to tell him to get on with it and babbled instead. “Yes, fuck, yes, oh yes, fuck, please.”

Cheshire eased himself out again and Zayn sobbed out some more ecstatic nonsense, then lost even the power to do that when his returning thrust hit Zayn’s prostate almost perfectly.

“Again.”

And he did, in long, steady strokes, his hands curled about Zayn’s hips to anchor him. Coloured lights splintered behind Zayn’s eyes. For a few brief, blissful moments, all thought, all memory, dissolved like sugar in water. Zayn was free. There was nothing but sweat and skin, hot harsh breath against his neck, a cock driving into him. Raw, undeserved pleasure stolen from a stranger in a dark room.

And then it was over. Like lightning from a clear sky. A moment of glorious, shuddering oblivion, a pure glittering hopefulness, and then the grim, inevitable return. To a puddle of cooling ejaculate trapped beneath Zayn’s rapidly wilting cock and a man whose name he didn’t care to remember labouring behind him. A wild disgust rolled through Zayn. And a strange, inexpressible sorrow for the shining moment that is never more than a moment. Then Cheshire pulled him close, his mouth open against the back of Zayn’s neck, and came with a muffled, self-conscious murmur, his body streaming with sweat and shaking with strain.

They fell apart, Safetyboy Cheshire keeping a tight hold on the condom as he eased himself out of Zayn’s body. He collapsed onto his back and threw an arm over his face as his breathing steadied. Zayn wanted to move, to gather his clothes and get out of there, but neither his body nor his mind were quite cooperating. He heard Cheshire moving about the room, presumably cleaning up. After a moment, the mattress squeaked, heralding his return. Something cool and damp tenderly enclosed Zayn’s cock, and he jackknifed into a sitting position.

“What the fuck?”

“Wet wipe, babe.”

“God, don’t you have tissues like a normal person?”

“It’s Olay. With aloe vera.”

“Oh, well, in that case.” Zayn had to get out of here.

Cheshire scrunched up the wipe and flopped down next to him. “You totally trashed my hair.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you always, y’know . . . like that?”

Zayn opened his mouth and closed it again. There was a long silence. “No,” he said, finally.

Cheshire gave an immense yawn. “That was proper special.” Then he rolled right up close, tossed an arm and a leg over Zayn, and fell almost immediately asleep.

Zayn lay there in frozen horror, watching the pattern of shadows and cracks on the ceiling. This had all been a terrible mistake. And he had no idea where he was. How was he going to get away? What was going to happen? What had he done? What had made him think this would ever be all right? The image of his medication, sitting on the kitchen countertop, vivid to the tiniest detail of the prescription on the label, flashed across his mind. Fuck, oh fuck. His heart started racing. Anxiety shook itself like a wolf leaving its lair. Zayn told himself it was psychosomatic. He was going to be fine. Yes, he’d broken all his routines, but at least he hadn’t taken any drugs. Though he resented having to feel grateful to Louis for that. But how much had he drunk? Enough to dilute the carefully modulated biochemical sanity sloshing around inside him? Oh, God, was he going to go mad? How would he tell? When he found himself in hospital, that’s how he’d know. Except, by then, he wouldn’t believe it. Please, please, he didn’t want to go back to hospital. He’d rather kill myself. Wait. No, he didn’t mean that. He didn’t mean that.

Maybe Zayn would just feel shitty for a while. Crash in depression, rather than soar into mania. That would be okay, wouldn’t it? He could endure it. He’d be strong. And it would be a fair price for that split second of physical happiness. His eyes burned as he bargained desperately and silently with a God he didn’t believe in. Ah, the pitiful prayers of a rational man. If the mad can so be called.

He twisted under Cheshire’s arm, and his deep, even breathing gusted over Zayn’s skin. The unexpected warmth raised a prickle of goose bumps across his arm and shoulder. And, slowly, impossibly, his thoughts ceased their frantic churning. Zayn’s heart rate dropped. He . . . relaxed. His body felt heavy, sore but—in some distant way—satisfied. It was an unusual sensation. Anxiety and depression have conspired to render him a lifetime member of Insomniacs R Us. But, somehow, on a bare mattress, in a strange house, with a strange man sprawled over me, Zayn was slipping into sleep.

Maybe it was going to be all right.


	3. Chapter 3

Zayn met Sophia, as arranged, at the Three Crowns. It claimed to be a traditional English pub, which meant dark wood and warm beer. Not that he would be drinking. Not after Brighton.

_Stitch on, lunatic._

Sophia was sitting at a table in the dingiest corner, sipping a pint and reading on her iPad. Zayn had a terrible record for showing up to things, but she still hadn’t given up on him. He couldn’t tell if that made her stubborn, foolish, or . . . nice.

“Hey you,” she said, jumping up and hugging him. He gave her an awkward squeeze. “Extravagant air kiss . . . mwah, darling . . . mwah . . .”

This was another fossil of a joke. Zayn couldn’t remember where it’d come from. He had a horrible feeling it might have been him.

Leaning in, he went through the motions. Mwah. Mwah. Sigh.

“And I bought you a drink. Full-fat Coke, not diet, on the rocks, with lime not lemon.”

“Thank you.” Zayn sat down, unbuttoning his coat and unwinding his scarf.

“It’s okay.” She smiled at him. “You’re a cheap date. It’s one of the things I like about you.”

“What about my swashbuckling charm and pretty face?”

“Went without saying, sweetie.”

Zayn took a sip of his Coke to hide a smile. Sophia was the sort of woman who occasionally made him wish he wasn’t gay and clinically insane. She was pretty in what he thought was probably an Anna Kendrick sort of way: lively eyes, wicked smile.

“It’s colder than Satan’s arsecrack out there,” she went on cheerfully. “Where’s the bloody spring gone? How’ve you been?”

Zayn hesitated, weighing fact and fiction, pride and friendship. “Well, truthfully, not entirely great. But I’m okay now.”

“Yeah, I heard about Brighton.”

Well, this was likely to be awkward. “Oh?” he adopted what he hoped was a neutral tone.

She nodded. “Liam told me.” There was a pause. “Everything.”

“Oh.”

Yes, this was definitely awkward, and there was only so much mileage he could get out of “oh.”

She ruffled a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to dump shit on you. Shall we talk about how everyone loves the new Rik Glass instead?”

“God, no.” Zayn recoiled in revulsion. “You know I hate talking about my books. Also, you can dump shit on me. Figurative shit, anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll tell you straightaway if my mental health starts to buckle under the weight of your emo.”

“Don’t be an arse.” She rapped the table in a manner that suggested it was substituting for his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. Even non-depressed people have a right not be whinged at.”

“I’m consenting, meaningfully, to be a whinge recipient.”

Maybe this was why he liked Sophia. She was very good at making him feel like he might be salvageable. That he could be something other than a burden to someone. That he might be . . . all right.

“Okay.” She folded her elbows on the table and took a deep breath. “It’s, well, it’s about Louis. I mean, trying to shag Liam on his stag night was kind of not okay with me. But, equally, I know you guys all go way back, and I don’t want to be some kind of evil-bitch, straight-girl stereotype.”

Sometimes the simplest truths could be the most difficult. Zayn supposed it depended which side of them you were on. “It’s fairly clear to everyone except Louis that he’s in love with you, Sophia.”

She was quiet for a moment or two, her finger tracing a succession of fading abstracts in a puddle of spilled beer, while he tried to come up with something useful and/or comforting to say to her and failed on both counts. He couldn’t tell if it was because the problem was complicated and insoluble, or if he was just hopeless. Some friend. Some lover. He couldn’t even indulge in a one-night stand without having a panic attack. And here he was thinking about himself, as usual.

Sophia looked up and sighed. “It just feels like whatever happens, someone is going to get hurt. I’m not mad keen on that.”

“No, but that’s just the way it is, sometimes.”

 They stared moodily into their drinks.

“Did happiness always used to be this complicated?” Sophia asked after a bit.

Zayn shrugged. “I have no idea. Happiness and I are barely on speaking terms these days.”

Her eyes held mine for a moment. There was pity there, which of course he hated, but also warmth. He waited for the clumsy platitude, but he had, as ever, underestimated Sophia.

“Oooh, I’ll show you some happiness.” She slid her phone over the table. “Look. My wedding dress!”

Zayn spared it a brief glance. “Yes, that’s definitely a dress.”

“Such a curmudgeon.” She glared at him in mock displeasure.

With an exasperated noise, he reached out, took the phone, and looked at the photograph. A smiling woman in a white frock; seen one, you’ve seen them all. Except, no, it was different. It was Sophia.

“You look pretty. And happy.”

“Not half as happy as the sales assistant standing next to me. You wouldn’t believe what a wedding dress costs.”

“No,” he said firmly. “I wouldn’t.”

She laughed. “Curmudgeon.” She pulled her phone out of his hands and stuffed it back into her pocket, signalling that he was relieved of his wedding-related conversational duties. “Anyway, what happened to you in Brighton? Liam said you pulled.”

“Oh . . . err . . .” An absolutely scalding blush burst across his face. As far as Zayn was concerned, what happened in Brighton stayed in Brighton. “I didn’t think he’d seen. I barely spoke to him, actually. I’m shitty like that.”

If Sophia noticed his inept attempt to deflect the topic of conversation back to Liam, she still let him get away with it. “He’s more perceptive than he lets on. And he does care about you.”

“I know he does.” He hesitated, wondering how best to articulate something awkward. “It’s just, Louis is sort of the lynchpin. He’s the thing we have in common. Not that he’s a thing. But Liam is almost like a . . . a . . . friend-in-law. Or something.”

She grinned at him over her pint of John Smith’s. “Also, he’s really scary.”

“God, he is! Why are you marrying such a disgustingly perfect specimen of manhood?”

“I have really terrible taste. I should find some kind of broken, insecure, miserable weasel-type man with a tiny cock, right?”

Zayn spread his hands. “Look no further. Um, except for the cock part. I’m phenomenally well-endowed.”

Her smile vanished. “Zayn,” she said softly. His hands were resting on the tabletop, carefully placed so his cuffs didn’t drag in any beer rings, and Sophia covered them with hers. It was nice, for about half a second, and then it was too much, even from Sophia, so he shook her off. “You’re not broken. And everybody’s insecure. Even Liam, would you believe it?” She paused. “You do have a touch of the weasel though.”

“I what?”

“I think it’s that intent, curious, dark-eyed look you have. It’s a bit musteline.”

Zayn gaped at her, speechless, and she burst out laughing. Her laugh was nothing like his glitter pirate’s laugh, but the easy joy in it made his memories chime like bells. He felt a sudden, sharp pang of something almost like loss.

Before he had to wonder about it, his phone beeped a warning.

“Well.” Zayn finished the watery dregs of his Coke and stood. “You may give thanks that you’re spared my withering and soul-destroying retort because I need to go.”

Sophia gave him the “Be seeing you” wave. “Best of luck. And try to have fun.”

“Fun?” He gave a fastidious shudder. “Reading one of my own books? Why don’t you put me down for a colonic irrigation at the same time?”

“Curmudgeon.”

“Weaselist.”

Zayn struggled into his coat, wound himself into his scarf, and headed out into the cold.

A couple of hours later, he’d had his photograph taken, been confused with Adam Foulds, had my photograph taken again, answered the usual questions about where he got his ideas (“it’s complicated”), if he’d solved any actual crimes (“no”), and what advice he’d give to an aspiring writer (“do something else”). He’d valiantly read some passages from Through a Glass Darkly and nobody had fallen asleep or thrown rotten vegetables, so he thought it was fair to say it had all gone off quite well. He retreated to a nearby table while a wavering queue formed up in pursuit of his signature.

But he was starting to feel tired, drained, and ungrateful. Sometimes it’s beyond him to carry on a conversation with one person, and here he had a whole room looking at him expectantly. He knew he should have been glad for them, for these were the readers who kept him in pyjamas and tea bags. And he was. But he didn’t see why he couldn’t be glad quietly, at a safe distance, in the privacy of his own home. The truth was, somewhere down the line, between the hospitalisations and the drugs, he’d somehow lost the cornerstone of humanity: the ability to pretend, to counterfeit the basics of social interaction, to smile when you didn’t feel like smiling, to seem like you cared about other people when you lacked the capacity to care about yourself. So that left him, graceless and wearied, pretending to pretend. An organ-grinder’s brass monkey, capering to clockwork.

Another copy of his book appeared in front of him, dog-eared and well-read, which pleased him, just a little. Zayn had always found something slightly eerie about untouched books. Glass coffins, with the words sleeping inside.

“Who should I make it out to?” he asked, not quite managing to look up.

“Oh, I dunno,” said a far too familiar voice, “How about maybe ‘To the bloke that I slept with and then did a runner on in the middle of the night, making him feel like a right slapper’?”

“That’s quite lengthy,” Zayn said, after a very long moment. “I may have to adapt it a little.”

“Whatever.”

He wrote out his message, signed, closed the book, and pushed it back across the table.

“Right,” said Cheshire. “Thanks.”

His footsteps receded. Zayn tried to think over the wild thundering of his heart. Someone placed another book in front of him, newly purchased and pristine. His fingers trembled as he opened it.

“Who—” Zayn began.

“Oh, I forgot.” Dear God, Cheshire was back. “You left something behind.”

There was a flutter of turquoise silk, and Zayn’s boxers with the peacock feather print landed right on top of the title page of Through a Glass Darkly. He jerked his head up just in time to see Cheshire flouncing off and the frozen expression of the tweed-jacketed gentleman standing in front of him.

“I’m terribly sorry,” the poor bloke said, after a moment, “but I only brought a copy of the book.”

Zayn put down his pen, picked up his boxers, folded them neatly, and tucked them into his inside breast pocket. Then he picked up the pen again.

“That’s quite all right,” he said, magnanimously. “Who should I make it out to?”

Zayn escaped half an hour or so later without further incident. As he stepped onto Piccadilly, however, something made him look around. Sitting at the bus stop, bag at his feet, was Cheshire. He was wearing the same pointy-toed boots he’d had in Brighton and another pair of skinny jeans, a top that looked like knitted fishnet, and—presumably in deference to the occasion—a formal, fitted jacket with rhinestone-studded lapels. He looked absurd and beautiful. And dejected. He was holding Zayn’s book, open at the title page.

And Zayn stared at him idiotically, unable to walk away. He wanted Cheshire. Still. Again. Just as much as he had when he’d seen him in Brighton. It was madness, and Zayn knew madness, in all its many colours. He could just about justify indulging the impulse of a moment, but this was starting to look like a habit. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why, in all the vastness of the world, did a sparkly idiot from Cheshire make him feel alive?

He sat down beside Cheshire.

He didn’t look at Zayn.

“‘To a bloke I fucked—Z.J. Malik,’” he read. “Nice. That’s really nice. I don’t think you’re a very nice person.”

“I’m not,” Zayn said.

There was a long silence.

“So, am I some sort of minger or something?”

Zayn cast him a startled glance. “Uh, no. What? You’re quite attractive.”

“Bet you can’t even remember my name. That right, Zayn Javaad Malik?”

“How do you know—”

“Looked it up on Wikipedia, didn’t I? Not in a stalking way.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Zayn smoothed his cuffs in an effort to moderate my exasperation. “It was a one-night stand. You weren’t expecting to take me home to meet Mama Cheshire, were you?”

“Leave my mum out of this.” He wagged a finger at Zayn, faded silver gleaming on the nail like a piece of fallen star. “Just cos it was a hook-up doesn’t mean you go running out like you were on fire, do you know what I mean? That was bang out of order.”

Zayn suddenly noticed that his eyes were green. A pale, changeable green that shifted in the light and with his mood, mapping a subtle, private spectrum from grey to almost blue. Zayn found them rather lovely, and it was terrifying.

“Well,” he snapped, “I’m sorry I failed to display the appropriate casual sex etiquette, but what would have been the point of hanging around?”

“Dunno. Could have had breakfast, could’ve done it again. But it’s not about that.”

“What is it about, then?”

He turned and caught Zayn staring, and—like a fly in honey—Zayn couldn’t turn away.

“I thought you liked me,” he said simply. “It’s not like I wanted to marry you or anything, but I didn’t think you were gonna make me feel like a slapper.”

Zayn still couldn’t break his gaze. He was dying in the sweetness of looking at him. His eyes. The laughing mouth that had kissed Zayn, and made him burn and shiver and feel. Chiselled wannabe-model features. It was official: Zayn had lost it.

“I don’t like anyone,” Zayn said.

“What, nobody?”

“Yes, nobody.”

“God, babe.” Cheshire’s eyes widened. “That’s really . . . like . . . sad.”

Zayn shrugged.      

“I read your book,” said Cheshire after a moment, waving it at Zayn. “I thought it was good, actually. Not Dan Brown good. But I liked it.”

“Thank you.”

“I thought the title was well clever,” he went on. “Cos like his name is Rik Glass and the book is called Threw a Glass Darkly. Like the Annie Lennox song.”

Oh, good God. Zayn put his head in his hands. “It’s from the Bible, you arse.”

“I haven’t read it.” He shot Zayn appraising look. “Have you?”

“Well, no,” Zayn flustered. “But it’s a cultural consciousness thing.”

“What’s that about?”

“It’s . . . kind of . . . the way people . . . know things about things, without really knowing . . . things . . . about them.”

Cheshire poked him playfully in the arm. “That sounds like rubbish, mate. So, how did it go? The full thing?”

Zayn recited for him: “‘For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’”

“That’s really nice,” he said, seeming pleased. “I dunno what it means. Cos you can’t see through a glass if it’s dark, can you?”

“You’re quite right, Cheshire. I shall complain to the editor.”

“Isn’t that like . . . God?”

“I suppose it must be.”

“Don’t think he’s in.”

 Zayn put his hands in the air, miming shock. “What’s a nice boy like you doing spouting blasphemies like that?”

“It’s not being rude.” He looked a bit affronted. “It’s just what I think, is all.”

There was another awkward silence. It was a chilly evening, but warmth was creeping across Zayn’s skin like the promise of summer. He felt weak and shivery with longing. So what if he was a habit? There was still no reason anyone would have to know. Zayn stirred the dust of his pride: nothing. Fuck it then.

“So,” he said, “I have . . . um . . . this antique rolltop writing desk. At my flat. Where I write. I wondered if you’d be, um, interested in . . . um . . .”

Cheshire played with one of the leather bracelets tied round his wrist. “What?”

“Fucking me over it.”

He grinned gleefully. “I knew you liked me.”

“I like fucking you. It’s not the same thing.”

“Whatever, babe.”

That seemed close enough to a yes for Zayn to take it as one. Something that might have been relief rolled through him, though why he felt relieved that an idiotic glitter pirate from Cheshire had generously consented to fuck him over his writing desk, Zayn had no idea.

“I got some conditions though.”

So much for that. Zayn sighed. “What conditions?”

“One,” he said, holding up a finger to illustrate the point, “you’re not allowed to make me feel like a prozzie.”

“I wasn’t proposing to pay you.”

“Shut up. Two”—up went the second finger—“you’ve gotta say my name.”

Zayn blinked. “While we’re fucking?”

“Just like . . . in general.”

“And if I agree, we can . . .?” An odd moment to turn self-conscious, but for some reason he couldn’t quite manage to finish the sentence.

“Yeah.” He gleamed a smile at Zayn. “Alright.”

There was a pause that grew into silence that grew into a great yawning chasm. Cheshire was regarding him with apparently endless patience and wicked amusement in his eyes.

Zayn stared at his shoes.

“Do you need to phone a friend?” he asked, finally.

Zayn cleared his throat. “It’s . . . not . . . it’s just . . .”

“Yeah?”

“There’s, well, a very slight hitch.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Zayn shot a look at him. “Are you doing this deliberately?”

Cheshire blinked slowly. Innocently. “Doing what, babe?”

“Oh, you fucker.” He twisted his fingers together. “I can’t remember your name, okay? Okay? I’m sorry.”

He cackled. “Didn’t think so.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Well, it’s a good job I am, cos I reckon some people would be proper mugged off.”

“Come on, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. There was no point.” Cheshire just looked at him. “I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want me to do? Beg?”

“Maybe later.”

Zayn choked on his own breath. Heat ran riot over his skin. Rather breathlessly, he said, “Good sir, may I please have the honour of your acquaintance?”

“Yeah, alright,” he said. “My name’s Harry Styles.” They shook hands solemnly. Then he grinned. “And I’m gonna make sure you never forget it.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Oh, fuck, yes, Harry. Fuck. Harry. Like that. Please. Harry, oh Harry.”

One of Zayn’s flailing hands caught his MacBook Air and knocked it onto the floor with an ominous-sounding crash.

“Oh no, babe. Is that gonna be alright?”

“I don’t care, just don’t stop.” Zayn arched his back to better receive his cock, and he made one of his shy noises as Zayn took him to the hilt.

Harry bent over him and planted a soft kiss on the back of his neck, against the strip of skin exposed near the collar of his shirt. “Gotta . . . say . . .” he said breathlessly between thrusts, “I like it when you say my name. Sounds all posh. It’s well nice.”

“Shut up and fuck me. Harry.”

Harry laughed, messing up the rhythm and making Zayn buck and twist so impatiently that the antique inkwell Louis had bought him a couple of birthdays ago, and which he’d left languishing on top of the desk, tipped over. A tide of purple ink came rushing down the rolltop and drenched Zayn.

“Erm, do you want me to stop now?” asked Harry.

“Hell, no.”

“You donut.” He was laughing again, his body shaking against Zayn’s.

Zayn growled at him to pay attention, but then Harry slithered a hand under his hips and wrapped it round Zayn’s cock. Complaint lost, Zayn gave a helpless, grateful moan, his palms slipping on ink and smooth wood, unable to find purchase. But Harry was there to hold him pinned between the twin pleasures of his hand and his cock. It was exactly the right sort of helpless. Zayn writhed in pursuit of both, letting his body and all its lean strength drive away everything but desire and the frantic, undignified scramble after physical release.

Whatever the internal mechanism that moderated the human capacity for joy, Zayn’s had long been broken beyond repair. And he knew this was a poor substitute, a base shadow cast on the cave wall, a reflection in a tarnished mirror of ordinary things like happiness, love, and hope. But there were moments, fleeting moments, lost in the responses of his body to Harry’s, when it was almost enough. And, God, Zayn wanted, Zayn wanted so bad. These crumbs of bliss.

Zayn’s nails scratched at the desk, his breath a broken torrent. One of Harry’s hands drew back a curl of hair that, heavy with sweat, had fallen across Zayn’s eyes.

“It’s alright, babe.”

Zayn twisted his head to the side, feeling the discomfort in his neck and ink pooling beneath his cheek. “Kiss me.”

“Course.”

They grazed their mouths against each other in the barest of kisses. It was quite ridiculous. A bruising, graceless, haphazard business, a disorder of breath and a tangle of tongues, into which Zayn drowned a soul-deep groan as he came.

And Cheshire—Harry—a few seconds after, shoving him hard against the desk, a hand on his shoulder and his mouth slack against Zayn’s.

Panting, he crumpled onto the floor, Harry sprawled out beside him. Zayn’s shirt and waistcoat were a ruin of purple ink, his hands worse. His face felt wet, and when he wiped the inside of my wrist across it, he came away with a smeary indigo bracelet.

Zayn turned his head and met Harry’s wide eyes. “You look like you had it off with a Ribena or something.”

Zayn stretched luxuriously. “It was worth it.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, babe.”

“Fuck off.”

Harry laughed.

Zayn really needed a shower, but he didn’t move. His little finger twitched across the space between them until it lay neatly alongside his hand.

“Is this you trying to cuddle with me?”

Zayn snatched his errant hand away. “No! What? No. Of course not.”

“Come here.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll make you all purple.”

Harry shoved an arm under Zayn’s shoulders and pulled him over until Zayn landed in an inky splodge against his chest. It rose and fell under his cheek with the steady, endless cycle of his breath. Such a simple thing.

“See,” Harry said, tracing a purple spiral over the back of Zayn’s hand, “this is why people normally get naked before having sex.”

“No chance,” Zayn growled.

“You did last time. It was well nice.”

“This is this time. Now shut up and stop ruining my afterglow.”

Harry was still and quiet for all of ten seconds. Then he tipped his head back and twisted it this way and that, looking at Zayn’s study. “Have you really read all these books?”

“No, I just like the way they look on the shelves.”

“No, but seriously. Have you?”

“Well . . . yes.”

There was a pause. Then he said, “I reckon you’re so clever.”

“Yes, I am. Terribly.”

“How’d you find the time?”

“It just comes naturally.”

“Ha-ha, no. The books.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Zayn was suddenly tired, not just in the expected physical sense, and it soaked through him like rain. He was tired of talking, tired of thinking, tired of Harry, and tired of himself. “I suppose I used to like reading.”

Harry nodded, as if this was a perfectly reasonable answer. “So what else you into, then? I mean, except reading and writing, talking like the Queen, and dressing like my granddad?”

“I doubt your grandfather frequented Savile Row.”

“No, mate, he never left Holmes Chapel. No, but seriously, what are you into?”

“Well, between reading and writing and talking like the Queen, I don’t have a lot of free time.”

“No, but seriously,” he said again.

It was becoming a plaintive refrain, but what was Zayn supposed to say? That he enjoyed long walks on the beach and occasionally trying to kill himself?

“Coffee,” he said desperately. “I really like coffee.” He cringed into Harry, hardly knowing what kind of response such an answer deserved.

“Aw, you’re so right, babe,” he said. “My mum loves a good brew too.”

Suddenly Zayn could breathe again. “Will you stop comparing me to your parents? Or I’m going to think there’s something peculiar in your continued interest in sleeping with me.”

Harry laughed his heedless, happy idiot laugh. “That’s something else you can add to the list of things you’re into.”

“What? Being like your parents?”

“No, you donut, being with me. I never met anyone who gets into it like you do.”

“Trying to make me blush?”

“No, I just like it, is all.” Harry squirmed suddenly, and Zayn peered up into his face.

“Are you blushing?”

“No. Well. Maybe.”

Zayn thinned his lips to stop a strange little smile making its escape. “I should shower.” He peeled himself off Harry and sat up.

Zayn’s study was, to coin an expression, totally trashed. There was no way on earth he was getting purple ink out of the cream carpet.

“Want me to come with you?” Harry flashed a wicked, white-toothed grin.

Yes. Oh yes.

Zayn imagined his body, sleek as an otter and glittering with water droplets. The way the muscles of his back would shift like dappling sunlight as he fucked Harry.

Harry’s eyes flicked, with no pretence at subtlety, to my cock. “That’s a yeah, then?”

And then Zayn remembered: the sharp silver nothing of the knife as it glided down his forearm like a tall ship with a scarlet wake.

“Uh, no, it’s fine.”

“Alright, babe.”

“Just, um, make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”

 

              

 

“Can I ask you a question, babe?”

Showered, dressed, and only mildly purple, Zayn stepped into the living room to find Harry sprawled out on his sofa like he belonged on it. Did the man have no understanding of the delicate ritual of casual sex? He should have left by now. More disquieting still was the discovery that Zayn was not entirely horrified he had chosen to stay.

“You just have.”

Zayn perched, as though he were the interloper there, on the arm of his own sofa. But it gave him a fine view of Harry, stretched out beside him like a veritable invitation to debauchery. His toenails twinkled silver.

“Ha-ha, another question.”

“If you must.”

“Do you know your plants are all like . . . dead?”

Zayn looked around. As a certified loon, he was always being given plants, and Harry was right: they were all dead. Very dead.

He coughed. “Oh, yes, I’m the Green Reaper. I bring plants here to make them suffer.”

“You what?”

“Not really. I . . . I’ve been away.”

“Aww, babe, that’s really harsh. You should’ve got your mum to take care of them.”

Wonderful. Zayn was now obliged to come up with an explanation as to why he hadn’t made suitable arrangements for the plants he didn’t care about while he was away on the trip he hadn’t taken.

“My parents live in Bradford,” he said, which, at least, was not a lie. “I could hardly ask my mother to drive two hours across the country to water my plants.”

“What about your nan?”

“Both my grandmothers are dead.”

Harry sat up at once, snaked along the sofa, and wound his arms around Zayn. He was going to pull away, but it would have been undignified. And he liked being touched by Harry just a little too much to be sensible. “That’s sad.”

“My mother’s mother killed herself before I was born, and my father’s mother passed away when I was ten. Grandparents die. It’s what they do. I’m over it.”

Harry nuzzled into his shoulder. It was like owning a dog that wouldn’t shut up. But there Zayn was, not pushing him away. “Don’t be like that, babe. It’s not nice to talk about people dying like it don’t mean anything.”

“Sorry.”

Sorry? God, what was Harry doing to him? Harry was pulling him to pieces, and he didn’t even realise. Zayn leaned against him, letting the warmth of his body lap at him like waves, letting Harry hold him as though any of this mattered, and they sat like that for a few minutes, in Zayn’s unintended sepulchre for forsaken plants and forsaken selves. Of course, it was too good to last.

“Got another question.”

“What now?”

“You haven’t got any food.”

“Bollocks.”

“No, seriously, look.” Harry unwound them, took Zayn’s hand, and pulled him into the kitchen, flinging wide Zayn’s fridge door.

Zayn pointed at the jar of Branston Pickle. “That’s food.”

“That’s a condiment, babe.”

“It is not a condiment. It contains vegetables. Ergo, it’s a foodstuff.”

“Anything what you put on another thing is a condiment.”

“Well, by that twisted logic, maybe.” Zayn started opening and shutting cupboards pretty much at random. “Hah! What’s that, eh? Eh?”

Harry peered. “What’s what?”

“This!”

Zayn pulled out a half-used Merchant Gourmet packet from behind a dusty colander. Harry took it from him and peered inside, then flinched back like Zayn had handed him a box of alligator faeces.

“Ahh, it’s dead as well, mate.”

“They’re not dead. They’re porcini mushrooms. They’re supposed to be like that.”

“I’ve never seen a flat mushroom. That isn’t right.”

“They’re dried, you . . . you . . . donut.”

Harry kissed him, and it tasted sweet, like his laughing.

Zayn boiled the kettle and soaked the mushrooms. They ate them with Branston Pickle, sitting on the kitchen floor, and Harry said they were well rank. He was right.

“I tried to read your other book,” he said, when they’d given up on the possibility of food. “The one about the smoke being briars or whatever. But I couldn’t get into it.”

“Oh. Right.”

Zayn’s discouraging monosyllables failed to have the desired effect. “Well, it weren’t about anything. It didn’t have a proper beginning or a middle or an end or anything. And I didn’t know what was supposed to be happening now and what’d already happened and what wasn’t happening at all. What’s with that?”

Zayn shrugged. “In fiction, like life, there’s only ever the now. And the boundary between the real and the unreal is simply a matter of perception.”

Who knew that now better than Zayn?

“That doesn’t make sense, babe,” said Harry Styles, Literary Critic. “I think you should stick to the other stuff. You’re good at that.”

Zayn rolled his eyes. “Genre tat.”

“What? Don’t you like it?”

“Well, I suppose it’s better than digging a hole.”

“But don’t you like it really,” he persisted, “writing something to make people happy?”

“I don’t really care.”

“Aww, babe. That’s sad.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Zayn said wearily, “stop saying everything is sad. It isn’t sad. It’s just . . . the way it is. It’s my job, not a divine mandate. It’s not as though . . .”

Zayn had been about to say something . . . something . . . about human naïvety . . . and the fact they had no fundamental right to happiness . . . or something . . . but Harry’s hand moved over his thigh, fingers brushing his cock through his trousers, and Zayn’s breath hitched and his thoughts scattered, and he did not mourn them. Harry pushed him back onto the kitchen floor, crawling over him like some mountain cat stalking its prey.

“You don’t like nothing about it?” He spread his knees on either side of Zayn. “Nothing at all?”

Zayn’s hips bucked. “I just don’t see the point of talking about it.”

“I’m just interested or whatever. It’s called having a conversation.”

Harry caressed his face, light as nothing, sending a strange pleasure, part anticipation, part frustration, rippling over his skin. Zayn felt like a lake, and his hands were the moon.

“For fuck’s sake,” Zayn growled, “touch me properly.”

“But seriously.” Words Zayn was coming to dread. “You don’t like anything?”

“Do we have to do this now? You realise this is blackmail, Cheshire.”

“Harry.”

“Still blackmail.”

He grinned, reached for Zayn’s cock again, and tightened his hand until Zayn’s back arched. “Yeah.”

Zayn drew in a ragged breath. “If I tell you, will you stop asking questions and . . . and . . .”

“And what? I like it when you say things, cos it sounds posh and filthy at the same time.”

“Make me come.”

“How?”

“With your hand. On my cock.”

His own gave an appreciative sort of jump. He smiled. “Yeah. Reckon you could read the phone book and make it dirty.”

Zayn ran his hands up the inside of his splayed, denim-coated thighs, wishing it was skin beneath his palms. “This is the news at ten,” he whispered. “Politicians are predicting hard times ahead.”

It was a pathetic attempt at humour, but Harry threw back his head and laughed. Zayn stared at the strong, clean line of this throat. “Alright, then,” he said, fingers curling over the head of his cock while Zayn squirmed.

“All right, all right,” Zayn said. “I like . . . I like that I can make it neat, okay?”

Harry rewarded him with a long, languorous stroke. “What’s that mean?”

Zayn closed my eyes, trying to pretend he lived in a universe that contained only his cock and Harry’s hand. And lazy pleasure that spilled eternally in silver spirals. “Well, there’s always . . . an answer. Everything always makes sense. And can be . . . can be fixed.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry said. “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s very deep.”

“That’s all detective fiction is,” Zayn said, while Harry’s hand moved in a sweet, tormenting rhythm and Zayn twisted to meet it. “A control fantasy in a world where everything is meaningless.”

“Lots of things have meaning, babes. And, sometimes, when you think maybe they don’t, it’s just cos you aren’t looking for the same sort of meaning.”

“God help me, I’m being wanked off by Yoda.”

“Ha-ha, wanking the way to the dark side is.”

“Shut up. For the love of Jesus fucking Christ on a moose, shut up. I’m trying to get off here.”

Harry fell on top of him, howling with laughter. And, somehow, in that ridiculous tangle, his hand moving awkwardly against Zayn’s cock as he snuffled hysterically against his ear, and Zayn yelling at him, my body shaking with frustration, amusement, pleasure, bewilderment, so much bewilderment, Zayn did, in fact, get off.

              

 

It was long past midnight by the time Zayn convinced Harry that his proper place was in the guest room, not his bed, and that “because I don’t do that” was the only explanation he was getting for the arrangement.

“What about Brighton then?” Harry asked, hovering on the threshold as if he believed this was a negotiation.

“An accident.”

Zayn ignored his big, wounded eyes and retired for the night.

But of course, he couldn’t sleep. He found myself wondering what it would be like to have Harry here with him, the sleek warmth of his body curled protectively about his.

Zayn’s thoughts circled like vultures. Non-specific anxiety clawed at him. He felt too hot, too cold, too trapped, too lonely. Tired and cruelly awake.

The night was a vast plughole, an endless spinning of the self through ever-narrowing circles.

It had been (don’t say it, don’t spoil it) a good day. Zayn tried to rationalise it as the result of physical satisfaction but, in other more abstract ways, he had, almost without noticing, been something close to . . .

Happy.

His heart stuttered.

There was little Zayn feared more than happiness, that faithless whore who waited always between madness and emptiness. His moods, when they were not sodden with medication, could turn upon a tarnished penny; happiness was merely something else to lose.

Words and images drifted through his thoughts, catching at him like briars, fading into smoke.

This wasn’t safe. Zayn’s world was one of only broken images, like he was standing always on the threshold of a mirror, unable to tell the reflection from the real. The shining city and the blasted heath—the truth lay somewhere between, a thin grey line, slender as the edge of a knife.

And he’d known this mirage before. These shimmering moments. But they each had their price that must be paid. Looking back brought little comfort, only pain. The memory of light only made the present seem darker.

This would hurt on the other side. Because it always hurt on the other side.

Zayn should protect himself.

He wished he could sleep. He wished he could stop thinking.

But his mind has always been its own enemy.

 

              

 

Somewhere in the greyness of dawn, Zayn drifted into a dream-studded semblance of slumber, only to be woken a scant handful of hours later by the unfamiliar sounds of somebody moving around the flat. His first, drowsy thought was that a burglar was using his shower, and then he remembered.

Harry.

Zayn buried down into the duvet and grimly attempted to force himself back to sleep in the hope he would have left by the time Zayn woke up again. Unfortunately, the endeavour was not a success, and he was left with no choice but to get up.

Zayn knotted himself firmly into his dressing gown and padded into the kitchen, where Harry was eating a bowl of Weetabix and reading Heat magazine. He looked repulsively cheerful for someone on the wrong side of noon. His hair was a marvel of engineering. His jeans were very tight, as was his T-shirt, which was black and had the words “Show Love” written on it in silver, hard-to-read letters. His shoes were exceptionally pointy.

“Morning, babe,” he said. “I had to go to the corner shop cos you had nothing. And guess what?”

Zayn blinked. “Uh . . . what?”

“Look in the sink.”

 Zayn looked in the sink. There was a dead plant sitting in a sort of water bath.

“I think we can save her. The rest have had it, though.”

“Uh, great, well done.”

“It’s like a horror movie or something, innit?”

“Pardon?”

“She’s the only one to get out alive. Do you reckon she’s like a plant cheerleader or something?”

“I thought the cheerleader always died first?”

“Maybe, I dunno. I don’t really like horror, to be honest with you. Like you’re watching and you’re not scared so what’s the point, or you are scared and then you’re like . . . scared, do you know what I mean?”

This was all a bit much first thing in the morning. “I think so,” Zayn said dubiously.

“Kettle’s boiled, by the way.” Harry pointed helpfully, in case Zayn had somehow forgotten the location of his own damn kettle. “Milk in the fridge.”

“Oh!” Relief. “Tea!”

Zayn was just pouring himself a cup, when suddenly there was an excitable Harry behind him, nosing into his neck, while his hands swooped about Zayn’s person.

“What are you wearing, babe?” His voice struck Zayn as unduly incredulous for a man with a huge pewter ankh hanging round his neck.

“Gentleman’s sleeping attire.”

He turned Zayn away from his tea, a dangerous action if there ever was one. Zayn opened his mouth to complain but then Harry stroked his purple silk lapels.

“That dressing gown, babe,” he said, at last, “is love. And I have never seen pinstriped pyjamas before.”

“Are they, err, love?”

“I think they’re just a bit weird. I mean, what’s this pocket for? Carrying your teddy bear?”

“I don’t know, pockets are useful.”

“But why’d you need three in a pair of pj’s? Seriously, babe, you go to bed in more clothes than I wear going out.”

“Have you quite finished, Herr Lagerfeld?”

Harry kissed Zayn’s nose. “You’re so funny, babe. Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Thanks for . . . getting me off.”

Harry laughed. “Any time. So, like, I’ve got this meeting thing with a modelling agency today and then it’s back home cos mum’s expecting me. Unless like maybe you wanted . . .”

“Yes.”

Zayn had spoken before he’d even had time to frame the thought. And ten seconds later, Harry was phoning his mother to let her know he’d be staying another night in London. What had he done?

Zayn sat down at the table, sipping his tea while Harry babbled happily into his phone.

“Yeah, gonna crash with a mate . . . No, you don’t know him . . . No, he’s not an axe murderer or anything . . . I can just tell . . . Yeah, yeah, that’s a good thought. But if he was, right, he’d have already axe murdered me. Yeah, he’s nice . . . He’s quite posh. You should hear him . . .”

Zayn had a terrible split-second-too-late premonition of what was about to happen. And, despite his frantic fuck no, don’t you dare gesticulations, Harry shoved his phone at Zayn, explaining cheerfully that I should “say hello to Mama Anne.”

Zayn’s mouth fell open but no words came out. He gripped the phone in frozen terror as if Harry had handed him a live grenade. Harry grinned encouragingly, and Zayn shot him a betrayed look, which seemed to make no impression on him whatsoever.

“Good morning, Mrs. Styles,” Zayn said.

“Oooh, he’s right,” she said, “you do sound lovely. You can call me Anne.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s your name, darling?”

“My friends call me Zayn.”

“That is nice. Howw are you, Zayn? Is my Harry behaving himself?”

“I am quite well, thank you. And, yes, he’s a model house guest.” _I particularly enjoy the way he fucks me_. “He’s welcome to stay, um, any time.”

“You two be good.”

“Yes. Yes, we will. It was very nice talking to you, Anne. Good-bye.”

Zayn passed the phone back to Harry, with great relief. He chatted a bit longer and then hung up.

“I think I hate you,” Zayn said.

Harry bounced over and kissed him until Zayn was moaning into his mouth and clutching great handfuls of Show Love. Finally, he drew back.

“Maybe I don’t hate you.”

Harry grinned. “Alright, I’ll be back later, but I’m not gonna eat more of those dead mushrooms.”

“We can order in. When we’re not fucking.”

“Aww, babe, you’ve got it all planned out. You’re so romantic.”

“You’re unbearable in the morning, you know that?”

Harry did not look remotely chastened. “I’ll cook something nice,” he went on, and thrust what appeared to be a crumpled train ticket into Zayn’s hands. “But you’ll have to pick some things up for me.”

“You need me to pick up the 15:19 from King’s Cross?”

“Turn it over, donut.”

“This . . . this is a shopping list. Harry, I do not do shopping.”

“What? Never?”

“Well, sometimes, on the internet. When it can’t be avoided.”

Harry propped his hips against the edge of the table. God, they looked good in those exceptionally clinging jeans. “How about just this once?” he said, with what Zayn was sure he imagined to be a winning look.

“No.”

Harry fluttered his lashes. He actually fluttered his lashes.

“I’ll make it up to you, babe.”

“Oh, will you now?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, for somebody who made such a fuss about being treated like a gentleman of the night, you’re remarkably eager to use sex to get what you want.”

“Ha-ha, gentleman of the night. But who said anything about sex? That was your mind in the gutter, mate.”

“We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are enjoying ourselves down there.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Do we have a deal?”

“That you go shopping and I do anything you want? That don’t seem very fair.”

“Well, I don’t like going shopping.”

 Harry frowned. “You won’t,” he asked, in a small voice, “make me do something embarrassing or anything, will you?”

“God, no! I promise.”

He cheered almost instantly. “Alright, then.” He tapped the train ticket Zayn was still clutching. “So, you need to get everything on the list. And make a salad to go with it.”

“Wait—what? You didn’t say anything about a salad!”


	5. Chapter 5

Zayn dashed to the internet to see if any of the local supermarkets had a slot open for same-day delivery.

They didn’t.

Shit. Fuck. Wank. He was going to have to leave the house. Interact with people.

Make a salad? He could cope fine, thank you, as long as he had time to prepare. As long as he knew where he was going, what he was doing, what would be expected of him, and how much energy it would take. He needed to plan. Assess the danger. Break the whole activity down into safe, manageable chunks so that the enormity and unpredictability of what lay ahead didn’t overwhelm him.

Go shopping?

It was a minefield of potential disaster.

Zayn stared at his phone and thought about calling Louis, despising the way normal things could make him feel so utterly helpless.

Self-pity. Such an attractive quality.

But it was so miserably unfair. Whatever he did, no matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise, there was no respite from his limitations. He was his own cage. And he hated it. Hated himself.

Zayn put the list down on the kitchen table and carefully scrutinised it. Carrots, garlic, mince. And that was only the beginning. Argh. So many things heedlessly demanded in his careful, round writing. He would be shopping forever. Assuming he didn’t have a nervous breakdown in Sainsbury’s, which wasn’t as remote a possibility as he would have liked.

Zayn considered which scraps of his self-respect he could bear to sacrifice. Louis would help him. Even after everything. Because he always did. And Zayn would inevitably resent him for it. At first, gratitude felt like love. Now it felt like swallowing razor blades. And today Zayn couldn’t even bring himself to ask. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one. Pride, like happiness, was something a madman could ill afford.

Clearly, Zayn was going to fail this very simple task. Which left him wondering how to present it to Cheshire. “Hi, Harry, sorry, but I’m afraid you’re shagging a mental who occasionally lacks the confidence to leave his own house. Still fancy me now?” That was out of the question. Absolutely out of the question. The sex was reason enough on its own to avoid ruining everything. But somehow, like a fool, Zayn had come to like Harry’s insistent questions and the way he spoke to Zayn and looked at him. As if he thought Zayn was fascinating and impressive. He’d felt the very opposite of those things for so long Zayn could barely remember what it was like to think otherwise. And he couldn’t lose it. Not yet, anyway. Not so soon.

So that would mean lying to Harry’s face. Which Zayn was, he realised with only a minor internal wince at his own perfidy, perfectly prepared to do. He just had to make sure it was plausible.

Except.

Harry would be disappointed.

And Zayn did not want him to be disappointed.

Oh, no. Zayn couldn’t afford to tangle himself up in other people’s expectations and inevitable disappointment. It would be awful. An ever-expanding cycle of everyone feeling bad, like a bulimic serpent eating its own tail. He’d been through it with his parents, with Louis, with nearly everyone he has ever known. He’d fuck up and let them down, they’d feel sad, he’d feel sad, they’d feel sad for making him feel sad, and so on, and so on, and so on. As if he didn’t bear enough frustration and regret on him own account, without also feeling guilty for hurting the people who loved him.

Once upon a time, Zayn too dreamed different dreams. His horizon was bolder and grander and more beautiful than the threshold of his own fucking flat. And now he lived in a world so narrow and so colourless that getting out of bed in the morning was a victory. That not actively wanting to die was happiness.

Fuck it all, he was going shopping. He was going to buy carrots. And it was not going to be a big deal. That just left the salad problem.

Zayn opened up Google and stared blankly at the search box. With nothing to lose, he typed in “how to make a very easy salad in order to impress a man you want to fuck.” It was unhelpful. The first hit was complete tat, the second was a list of fourteen things every guy should (apparently) know how to cook, but none of them were a salad, and the third was an article on how to tell if a man was gay. Zayn was moderately certain Harry was gay. Fucking him had been a fairly subtle clue, but Zayn was onto him. It seemed he’d found the one thing that wasn’t on the internet.

He rang Sophia.

“I have to go shopping and make a salad.”

“My God, call the police.”

“No, but seriously.” (When did he start saying “no, but seriously”?) “How the fuck do you make a salad?”

“Oh, I know this one!” she said. “You go to Marks and Spencer, and they have them there in little plastic tubs. You buy as many as you need, take them home, put them in a bowl, and shout ta-daaa.”

That sounded almost doable except for the Marks and Spencer part. There was probably one nearby, because this was London, but it might involve the Tube. And Zayn certainly wasn’t up for that at short notice.

“I can maybe get to a Sainsbury’s,” he offered.

She thought about it a moment. “Then you’re fucked.”

“Right.”

There was a pause.

“Zayn,” she asked, “did you ring me because I’m the only person with a vagina you know?”

“Um . . .”

“Because, you know you don’t need a vagina to prepare a salad, right? In fact, I have it on good authority that there are salads prepared sans vaginas all the time.”

“Can you stop saying vagina over and over again? It’s scaring me.”

“It serves you right for being sexist. Vagina.”

Even in spite of Saladgate, Zayn felt a smile threatening at the corner of his lips. “Isn’t it just possible,” he said, “that I rang you because you’re a brilliantly clever and generous person (with a vagina) who I knew would be able to help me in my hour of need?”

“No.”

“You’re probably right.”

“But, you know,” she said. “You should try Liam. He’s a kitchen ninja. He’d love to help.”

Zayn flinched a bit. “I’ll work something out.”

“No, I mean it. Ring Liam. This is totally his speciality.”

“Yes but . . .”

“Anyway, sweetheart, I have to dash. I’m late for a meeting. The next Martin Amis, you know how it is. Mwah.”

Ring Liam, she said. As if it were simple. As if Zayn could just pick up the phone and talk to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Liam other than as part of a larger group, or the last time they’d had anything like a conversation. Perhaps they’d been closer at university, but Zayn had lost so much of that time due to an extravagant combination of recreational drugs, mania, and electroconvulsive therapy. A title for his autobiography, possibly. Or an epitaph. The ECT had sort of worked, but it had fucked his memory inside-out and upside-down. Nearly everything had come back, in time, but it had left his life a jigsaw. Zayn had the pieces but he didn’t know what the picture was supposed to be.

University and its immediate aftermath were little more than a sensory haze. A blur of gold and green, the scent of old books, the slide of a stranger’s body against his. Rushes of chemical rapture. The heat of a nightclub, a sweep of lights, like a peacock’s tail, bodies and heartbeats and music. He was king of a glittering world, a splintering, falling, shattering world. But what of Liam? What could he remember of Liam?

Patrician good looks and a self-deprecating smile. Cricket whites for dreamy afternoons. Punting and a panama hat in the full golden gleam of summer. And, in winter, a wine-red scarf by an Italian designer so exclusive even Zayn hadn’t heard of him. Zayn thought Liam used to let him bury his hands in it on cold days. His skin, at least, remembered the softness. Like a kiss from a ghost.

It’s quite an accomplishment to out-privilege Zayn, but Liam, the youngest son of an American heiress and an English viscount, was the sort of person who had no right to exist outside of Sunday night costume dramas and the novels of Evelyn Waugh. If there was any justice in the world, he would be profoundly unlikeable (or at the very least ugly) but, somehow, he wasn’t. Imagine, if you would, the sincerity of an American coupled with the self-irony of the English, wrapped in the body of a Greek God. The bisexuality, one must assume, was simply a gift from the universe.

Leaving university with an effortlessly acquired First, he went on to effortlessly found a culture consultancy firm, which had been effortlessly successful, even in the middle of the recession. Zayn wasn’t sure what Liam actually did. Extremely wealthy companies hired him to improve their corporate culture. This seemed to involve Liam telling them to buy fruit for their employees and then they’d give him millions and millions of pounds.

It was no wonder Zayn was so reluctant to parade his endless inadequacies in front of Liam. Not that he hadn’t seen them all already. But there was something  implacably blessed about Liam. He was practically a mutant and his mutation was being better than you at everything.

Zayn didn’t even know Liam liked cooking. No surprise that he was apparently excellent at it.

He rang Liam. What else was he to do?

“Zayn, hi!” Liam sounded genuinely thrilled. He usually did. Talking to Liam could make you feel like the most important person in the whole world. It was a heady drug. And Louis’ prescription of choice.

“So glad to hear from you,” he rushed on. “It’s been, like, forever. Excuse me a moment.” The line crackled and Zayn heard him talking to someone else. He seemed to be telling them where to put some fruit. Zayn snuffled in private hilarity and tried to pass it off as a throat-clearing as Liam came back onto the line. “I’m here. How are you?”

“I’m all right actually. How about you?”

“Going out of my tiny mind over the wedding. It’s an absolute nightmare. My mother’s family are outraged it can’t be held in Buckingham Palace, my father’s family hate my mother’s family, Sophia’s family think we’re all insane and want to go back to Yorkshire. And I’m petrified they’re not going to allow their only daughter to marry me after all. But—” Amusement coloured his voice. “—other than that, everything’s fabulous.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Zayn said. “You’re filthy rich. They’ll probably just have you murdered on your wedding night.”

“That’s reassuring, buddy. I read your latest by the way. Absolutely loved it. I totally didn’t see the twist, because I’m an idiot, but when I thought back, it made perfect sense.”

“I’m quite proud of the title,” Zayn heard himself saying, “because his name is Rik Glass, right, and the title is Through a Glass Darkly. Which is an Annie Lennox song. And also in the Bible.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Liam gave a snort of upper-class laughter.

“Anyway,” Zayn went on before he ran out of stupid things to say that could be generously interpreted as his dry, ironic wit, “I sort of need your help.”

Liam didn’t hesitate. “Of course, Zayn. What can I do?”

Shit. How to start? “There’s this . . . guy . . . who I’m . . . well . . . shagging, I guess.”

“That’s great!”

“Yes, I quite enjoy it. Anyway, I sort of . . . gah . . . it’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” Zayn could almost hear Liam frowning, dark brows sliding into intent little Vs.

“Look,” Zayn said, quickly, “I need to make a salad. How do I do that?”

Liam spluttered. “God,” he said, “is that all? I was braced for absolute disaster. Married man, BNP supporter, closet-case, accountant. Not salad eater.”

“Oh, fuck off. You know I don’t cook. Now are you going to help or not?”

“Of course I’m going to help.”

“It has to be an impressive salad,” Zayn explained. “A really impressive salad.”

“Oh, I see, you need a ‘let’s do it on the kitchen table right now’ salad.”

“They have those?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely they do.”

“Well,” Zayn said impatiently, “hit me up. But remember I’m a salad neophyte. I’m not faffing around with pans or any complicated shit like that.”

“Damn, you’re a difficult man to please.”

Zayn didn’t quite know how to answer that.

“All right,” Liam continued, “how about pear and Roquefort with a honey and ginger dressing?”

“That’s a sex salad, is it? Because, to me, blue cheese does not scream passion. But,” Zayn added, with a play of reluctance, “I suppose I’ll have to trust you.”

“It’s a salad. It doesn’t need a safeword. I’ll send you the details. Also, we should go for a coffee.”

“Yes, we should.” This was how all of their conversations ended, with vague intentions and abstract good wishes.

There was a pause.

“Zayn,” Liam said, with a trace of hesitation Zayn was unused to hearing in his voice, “why do you always give me the brush-off?”

“I said yes, didn’t I?”

“In a ‘never getting round to it’ way. I mean, you don’t have to. I can be your Long Distance Salad Guru. But I miss you.”

Zayn shuffled uncomfortably. He was half convinced the reason he’d managed to retain whatever good opinion Liam had of him was through the judicious application of distance. “What if I’m shit company?” Zayn said, as though it was a very self-deprecating joke.

“What if I’m the shit company?” Liam paused and then, half jesting, half sincere, added, “Am I shit company? Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

Zayn sighed. “I’m a misanthropic, clinically anxious, bipolar lunatic. I avoid everybody.”

“Lies! You see Sophia all the time.”

“I work with Sophia.”

“Oh, so that’s why she’s entitled to misanthropic, clinically anxious, bipolar lunatic action despite the fact that some of us, it could be argued, have prior claim and should, therefore, be first in the queue?”

“There’s a queue?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Liam I . . . I just don’t . . . I’m just not . . .” Zayn trailed off. What could he tell Liam? Zayn was so much less than he used to be. _Seeing you reminds me._

“Fine,” Liam said. “Fine. If it has to be professional, then so be it. I shall come and consult with you about improving your corporate culture. Over coffee.”

Zayn gave a helpless, unexpected laugh. “I’ve got enough fruit, thanks.”

“I bet you don’t. I actually bet you don’t. I bet you don’t have a single piece of fruit in your whole house.”

“Darling, I am the fruit.” And while Liam was chuckling, Zayn went on hastily. “Anyway, I’d better see about this salad. Bye.”

And Zayn hung up on him, like the selfish coward he was.

A few minutes later, Zayn’s phone bleeped. True to his word, Liam had emailed him salad ingredients and instructions. It seemed just about within Zayn’s capabilities. On a good day.

He could do this.

 

              

 

“You alright, babe?” said Harry as Zayn let him inside.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he said with impressive nonchalance. “How’d it go?”

“Think I did good. I think they thought he was a bit Ibiza party boy though.” He grinned, unabashed. “Did you get everything?”

“Of course.”

“Come ’ere.”

He kissed the smug right off Zayn’s lips, like a cat licking cream. And Zayn let him, smiling against his mouth, leaning into him only a little, as if today had been nothing at all. As if everything had always been all right.

              

 

PEVIOUSLY…

Don’t panic, don’t panic, breathe, it’s fine, it’s fine. God, have these places always been so bright? Is it hot in here? Zayn was suffocating on light. Lost in a maze of wire and geometry. The aisles were radiating away from him, endless, white and bright and silver, like a three-dimensional crossword puzzle, white space and a black abyss, and nothing, and nothing, and nothing. People roaring past him like cars down a motorway, their eyes like headlights, glaring through him. Thundering away in a rush of feet and a swoosh of breath. Strangers, and the loudness of their living, battering him on all sides, the whole world, crashing too loud, too bright against him. Wire-crowned waves, scraping his skin, fingernails in his eyes. Why can’t he find anything? A fucking carrot, where are the fucking carrots? Why was this simple thing impossible? Breathe. It’s fine. Breathe, fuck it, breathe. Fucking basic. Okay, just rest, it’s fine, just stare at this row of olives, nobody is looking, nobody knows. Heart racing like a rabbit. Half-dried sweat seared his palms. But nobody knew. That’s all that mattered. His sweaty, fearful little world: population, him. The pit of his stomach, where terror gathered, a cold iron snake coiled around his heart. Zayn thought he hated everything. All his words were whirling away into animal panic, thick as mud. This wild awareness of too much that was its own dislocation. Its own separation. Reality was peeling like a grape. Zayn felt he could hear his synapses. Where are the fucking carrots?

              

 

“So what is this culinary masterpiece?” Zayn asked, following Harry into the kitchen.

“Well, Greg,” said Harry, “tonight Harry Styles will be preparing a menu of his mum’s cottage pie with . . . well . . . that’s it, actually.”

“What? Who the fuck is Greg?”

“The fat one with the dimples in MasterChef.”

“I do not watch MasterChef.”

“Aw, babe, you’re missing out big time. It’s amazing. The stuff they make on there . . . amazing. And there’s this voice-over what’s all like—” He dropped his voice into a low purr. “—‘Barry has prepared a filo of poutine with a glazed salmon jus, pan-seared girolles, celeriac mash, and a basil and honey cream glaze.’ And, mate, I gotta say I don’t know what they’re on about half the time but I feel like I really wanna know, do you know what I mean?”

“I do know that if you try to pan-sear my girolles, I’ll be throwing you out.”

Harry laughed. “But, yeah, you should totally watch it, babe. Just not the celebrity version cos that’s rubbish cos they can’t cook. And it’s always like MC Hammer has made beans on toast and you’re sitting at home thinking like, oi, I can do that, thank you very much.”

“It’s on my to-do list,” Zayn said. “Right after ‘stick a fork in my eye.’”

Harry dumped a large, leather-bound book onto the kitchen table and started rummaging through the Sainsbury’s bags Zayn had left on the counter because he hadn’t been able to face unpacking them. The orange plastic had kept glaring at him like it was mocking him for having nearly succumbed to a panic attack in a supermarket. The too-fresh memory of those strip-lit, labyrinthine aisles seared his mind like acid.

“You wanna look?” said Harry over his shoulder.

Zayn snapped back to the present, safe in my own flat. “Pardon?”

He gestured at the book. “It’s my portfolio, innit? Wanna look?”

Not really. Zayn wanted him to do his cooking so they could fuck, and he could forget, forget everything in fleeting, physical pleasure. “Do you want me to?”

“Course.”

He suppressed a sigh, pulled Harry’s portfolio towards him, and flipped it open. Harry’s face, starkly, shockingly beautiful in its artificial stillness, gleamed up at Zayn. His hair was platinum blond, his eyes a deep and steady grey. The generous mouth was stripped of its mirth, though not its sensuality. It was Harry, but not Harry. Some quintessence of Harry, laid bare by the photographer’s art. Loveliness refined like a sharpened blade.

He’d come to stand behind him as Zayn stared.

“What do you think?”

Zayn cleared his throat. “You . . . yes, you’re certainly, photogenic.”

“Ha-ha, you just take millions of them. Bound to be one or two what don’t make you look a right minger.”

Zayn turned the pages—his profile, a smile, a couple of fashion shoots, followed by an advertisement for a local college with the slogan Stand Out, Be Yourself, which seemed to involve Harry jumping in the air, mostly naked, through a splash of multicoloured paint.

“I would certainly enrol,” Zayn said. The pose, the tension in his uplifted arms and outstretched legs, had brought into definition all the sleek muscles Zayn had felt shaking against him while they fucked.

“I was scrubbing paint from places where it had no right being for days after.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I couldn’t just leave it up there, babe. It’s probably like toxic or something.”

“No, I mean . . .” Zayn tapped the page. “Why this?”

Harry shrugged. “Cos it’s the job.”

“Yes, but it’s not really a job, is it? It’s more of a . . .” he felt the sudden stillness of Harry’s body and Zayn’s voice trailed away.

“More of what?” Harry asked.

“An aspiration. A hobby. I don’t know.”

Harry gave him a look Zayn couldn’t quite read. A faint creasing of the brows, a certain turn of the lips. “I think that’s a bit out of order,” Harry said, finally. “Maybe it isn’t a job to you, but I like it and I get paid, so I reckon that makes it a job to me.”

“Yes, but what about the future? I mean, it’s hardly a career, is it?” Oh fuck, Zayn sounded like his mother. Not that she would say something like that to him. Everyone had loved her when she’d come to visit him in hospital. Every week, without fail. So delicate in her pearls and her tap-tapping heels, her voice as soft and resolute as water. For the last twenty-seven years, she had been unfailingly kind to her wayward, broken, disappointing son.

“I don’t think I want a career, babe,” said Harry comfortably. “Can you really see me in an office, being all, ‘Alright, Mark, photocopier’s down again.’ And, anyway,” he added, “it isn’t up to you.”

“No, you’re right.”

There was a long silence.

“You gonna like say sorry or summin?” Harry asked.

“Um, why?”

“For acting like I’m some sorta skiver.”

“I’m sorry,” Zayn said, because it was easier than arguing about it. How had he allowed himself to get dragged into this? He didn’t care what Harry did with his life. But Zayn’s attempt at an apology sounded so ungracious even to himself that he found himself adding: “You’re clearly very good at what you do.”

Harry looked mollified. “Thanks, babe.” After a moment, he went on, “I’m not gonna let myself starve or anything. I do other things as well when I have to, but I reckon I won’t have to if I get an agent in London. Already got one in Cheshire but I’m thinking big, do you know what I mean?”

“It worked for David Gandy,” Zayn said, with a faint, insincere smile.

Harry laughed. “I said I was thinking big, not like totally massive. I’m never gonna be a high fashion model or anything like that. I haven’t got the body for it. But I think if I try really hard, I’ll do alright.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Zayn turned the page. He flipped past a couple more fashion shoots. It was disconcerting to see Harry dressed to someone else’s specifications. As if he had somehow become the reflection of a different image. One picture showed him crouching a little coyly on a cobbled street in his ubiquitous skinny jeans and a V-neck sweater-vest one shade greener than his eyes. The sleeves of the undershirt were rolled up to his elbows, and he was wearing a bowtie that Zayn presumed was meant to be quirky or otherwise ironic, a pair of red Vans, and a trilby. He looked adorably, if incongruously, preppy and Zayn suddenly realised how well he had arranged his body to display the clothes he was wearing.

“My sister Gemma,” Harry said proudly. “She’s a designer. Got her own shop now and everything. She’s well clever. Loves clothes. Don’t think geek-chic is really me, though.”

“I do prefer you with your clothes off,” Zayn agreed.

Harry leaned forward and flipped over the final page. Zayn drew in a sharp breath.

“I thought I’d better do something arty,” he said. “Just in case or something.”

Harry’s portfolio ended on a couple of black and white nudes. Zayn gazed, entranced, at the way the light shimmered on his naked skin, drawing the eye into the shadowy secrets of his flesh.

“You look like Rodin’s Danaïd,” Zayn whispered, unable to resist tracing the curve of his spine with my fingertip.

“You what?”

“But a man, obviously,” Zayn added quickly.

Harry pulled out his phone and Googled. “I’m glad you said that, babe, cos I know I haven’t got a six pack but I don’t have moobs never.”

“It’s the juxtaposition of submission and sensuality.”

Harry gave a slightly self-conscious laugh. “You like it, yeah?”

“Yes. It’s beautiful.” The other photograph was slightly more conventional—Harry leaned back on his hands, one knee raised for the sake of modesty. It showed the lean, strong muscles of his thighs and arms, the ripple of his abdomen, the vulnerability of his exposed throat. “They both are.”

“You’re staring at them like you stared at me in Brighton,” Harry said. “Don’t go making me jell of me, babe. My head’ll explode.”

Zayn was jealous of the camera. The one-eyed monster that had pinned him in its possessing gaze.

“What were you thinking?” Zayn asked.

“Lots of things, babe. I was thinking about how to make it look right, cos it takes a lot of thinking to picture something when you can’t see it properly cos it’s you. And I was thinking ow, my back.’” Harry grinned down at Zayn, his foolish pirate grin, and Zayn was suddenly sure he was, if not lying, at least eluding him. Not that Zayn had any right to complain about that. Lying was his last unsullied talent. Then Harry’s hand slipped past his, a swift, insubstantial brush of skin, as he detached the page and handed it to Zayn. “Go on, you can have it, babe,” he said.

Zayn stammered something along the lines that he couldn’t possibly.

“But you like it,” he said, shrugging. “And I like thinking of you looking at me like that when I’m not around.”

“But, your portfolio.”

“I got others, babe. And I have done more commercial stuff now anyway.” Zayn stole another glance at the—at his—photograph. The sick flood of jealousy was receding now. And, instead, Zayn felt oddly moved by the notion that some stranger, looking with a stranger’s eyes, had seen Harry as Zayn did, had caught a moment of his beauty beyond the inadequacies and uncertainties of memory. “Besides,” Harry added, “I think you like me better like this. Not talking and with my bum in the air.”

He surprised a laugh out of Zayn, the sound ricocheting off the kitchen walls like a bullet.

“You’re right,” Zayn lied.

Harry cackled. “Now come here and say thank you properly.”

Zayn twisted round and kissed him. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it.”

Or try to. Until his next depression convinced Zayn that everything he valued was worthless and he destroyed whatever he could that used to matter to him. Zayn was the climber of a sheer cliff, dragging himself on bleeding hands towards a summit that he’d never reach and sometimes didn’t want to reach. The things he cared about were the hooks he’d driven into the rock face. Depression snapped them, one by one, one by one. His only certainty was the fall. Perhaps he should have told Harry: _don’t trust me with anything precious_. But Zayn wanted what Harry had given him too much to be anything other than selfish.

Harry left him with his portfolio and went back to unpacking. “You gonna help, babe?”

It took Zayn a moment to shake himself free of sentimentality.

“Not in the slightest. I’m going to sit here, do The Times crossword, and occasionally divert myself by leering at your arse.”

Harry tsked. And wriggled. And Zayn had to hide a smile in his palm.

“Well, alright,” he said. “You can get away with it this once, cos you did all the shopping. But I’m gonna need some music.”

Zayn nodded towards the iPod dock, and he turned it on, filling the kitchen with one of Bach’s cello suites. Harry hastily turned it off again. “Not what I had in mind.”

Zayn glanced up from The Times. “Not to your taste?”

“Na, it’s not that, babe, it’s just I don’t wanna be crying on the floor when I’m trying to cook my mum’s cottage pie. Are you like allergic to fun or something?”

“Yes, I’m in a programme. I have my five year token.”

Harry gave him a look Zayn couldn’t quite read, before swapping Zayn’s iPod with his own. A pounding remix of “F**kin’ Perfect” burst out of the speakers.

“Aw, I love this tune.” Zayn couldn’t help watching Harry as he Ibiza-ed it up all over the kitchen, one hand in the air, hips slithering about like a pair of snakes in a bag, as he hummed along, paying only passing tribute to the tune.

It was frankly . . .

Well.

It was just the slightest bit charming.

Zayn put his head in his hands

“Come on, babe.”

“Hell, no.”

“Why not?”

“Too many reasons to articulate, but let’s start with: I’m English, I have some self-respect left to me, and we’re in my kitchen, not a heart-warming American sitcom where people do that sort of shit because they are quirky and free-spirited. Also, I need decent quantities of drugs and/or alcohol to even contemplate getting down with my bad self.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“What’s to get? They make you feel good.”

“I’m like . . .” He put his fingertips together, forming a little square.

“Seriously?”

“Don’t reckon my mum would like it.”

“Your mum isn’t the one getting blatted.”

Harry shrugged. “But when I’m dancing, it’s like . . . it’s like how you are when you’re—” A touch of colour gleamed beneath his tan. “—when you’re with me, but except with the music. That feeling. You know.”

“I think I’ll stick to fucking. Since, at the very least, I’m not expected to perform that in a room full of strangers.”

Harry laughed and turned back to cooking, body still moving a little in time to the music.

“So, what did you do today?” he asked, chopping away.

_Well, Harry, I spent the morning fretting about going shopping, the early afternoon psyching myself up to go shopping, and the rest of the afternoon nearly having a humiliating panic attack in the middle of Sainsbury’s. That left me just enough time to put myself back together and de-lunatic my flat for your arrival._

“Oh, this and that,” Zayn said aloud, which was sufficiently discouraging that even Harry didn’t press it.

“Babe,” he said in a bit, “what you buy three garlics for?”

“You said to buy three garlics.”

Laughing. Again. “Three bits, you donut. You trying to catch a vampire or something?”

“I’m trying,” Zayn said frostily, “to solve seven across.”

“Do you want a hand?”

Zayn sighed to demonstrate he was put-upon before he read, “‘Nose and eyes, from what we hear, often indicated by hands.’ Five letters.”

“Haven’t a clue,” Harry said, at last. “That don’t even make no sense.”

“It’s ‘votes,’” Zayn said, scribbling it in.

“You what?”

“Well, ‘from what we hear’ usually means sounds like. ‘Nose and eyes,’ sounds like ‘noes and ayes,’ you know, yes and no, and voting can be calculated by raising hands. So it’s votes.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry said, nodding. “Wait, what am I saying? I’d have never thought of that in like a million years. You’re clever, aren’t you?”

Zayn cleared his throat. Harry’d said he thought Zayn was clever before (Zayn is clever—mad, but clever), but he didnn’t know why it suddenly made him uncomfortable. “It’s just about learning the tricks,” Zayn said, awkwardly. “Once you know how they’re put together, you can solve them. It’s got very little to do with being clever. Want to try another?”

“Yeah, alright.”

“How about this, five down. ‘Honestly? No, otherwise.’ Two, three, three.”

“I don’t like it when they’re more than one word, I think that’s cheating.”

“They’re only small words. It’s probably a phrase, something a bit colloquial.”

“No idea, babe. Don’t even know how to start, to be honest with you.”

“Well ‘otherwise’ usually means you need to re-arrange some letters. So the keyword is ‘honestly’—but, ‘no’ is telling you it means the opposite.”

“I feel like my head’s gonna fall off.”

“It’s ‘on the sly.’”

“What?” Harry turned, wooden spatula in hand, and narrowed his eyes to shining green-grey slivers. “Are you making this up?”

“No! ‘On the sly’—it’s an anagram of ‘honestly,’ meaning the opposite.”

Harry shook his head, throwing mince into a frying pan full of browning vegetables. “Is this what you’re into then? Messing about with words and all?”

“It’s just a habit really. Not much else to do—” Zayn stopped in sudden horror. He’d been about to say ‘in hospital.’ Grey days, carefully ordering and disordering the meanings of things, putting down the letters one by one, like a bricklayer. “—at university.”

“I couldn’t wait to get done with school. Three more years? Couldn’t be doing with that. I was like—” Harry performed a gesture Zayn thought was meant to signify a sixteen-year-old Harry telling the British Education System to talk to the hand. “—no thanks.”

Zayn had no conscious memory of putting the crossword down. But, somehow, he had. He was just sitting there foolishly, talking to Harry while he performed his haphazard alchemy at the stove. There had been nothing like this in Zayn’s kitchen, and for that matter his life, since Louis, and possibly not even then. Louis had resented cooking as much as Zayn did, but if he hadn’t provided food, then they would not have eaten.

Zayn propped his chin on his hand. “Oxford was the best time of my life. I was eighteen and full of hope. I was going to change the fucking world.”

“With doing crosswords and eating beans outta the tin?” Harry had his back to him, preoccupied with a pan of boiling potatoes, but somehow Zayn knew he was grinning.

“I never ate beans out of the tin! I was in my prime.”

“Yeah, cos now you’re all crusty and past it and like, ‘I remember when all this was grass, where’s my shopping trolley on little wheels.’ What are you, like twenty-five?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

“Man, your life is over.” Harry swept over with a block of cheese, a plate, and a grater and plonked them down in front of Zayn. “Here, might as well make yourself useful.”

Zayn drew back. “Oh no, I do not do manual labour.”

“Babe, manual labour is like pulling a plough or stacking shelves down the Costcos. That’s grating cheese.”

Zayn sighed and picked up the grater without further protest. “How much?”

“What?” Harry blinked at him.

“How much cheese do you want grated?”

“All of it, duh.” He flitted off to drain his potatoes. “So, what else you do at university? Or was it all crosswords and Scrabble parties, with the beans served under those silver dome things?”

“Actually, I was my college Scrabble champion.”

“Really?” Harry gave him an impressed look over his shoulder. “Is that cos you’re all good with words and stuff?”

Zayn grated doggedly. It was totally manual labour. And since when did he say “totally”? “On the contrary, it’s because I’m quite good at maths. Scrabble isn’t a game about letters, it’s a game about numbers. There’s no poetry in it at all. If you’re looking to make beautiful words, you’re looking to lose.”

“Well what with it being a game, maybe I’d be looking to have fun or something crazy like that?”

Harry came back, took the grater from Zayn’s inept hands, and finished the job himself in about two vigorous seconds. Zayn somehow managed not to comment.

“Crazy,” Zayn agreed. Out of nowhere, he wanted to kiss Harry’s wrists, like he had in Brighton.

Harry mixed the cheese—all of the cheese, enough for a heart attack—into the mash and began layering it onto a baking dish full of mince and vegetables. Finally, he gave the whole thing a vigorous scattering of salt and pepper, and bunged it into the oven.

“Oh no.” He gave himself a little smack on the forehead. “Forgot to take the leaf thing out, didn’t I? Just don’t eat it by accident, alright? It tastes rank.”

“I think I can just about manage not to eat a bay leaf.”

“It’s easy done, babe. Especially if you’re distracted.”

Zayn raised his brows at him. “Why, what are you going to be doing to me while I’m eating?”

Harry gave one of his little gasps. “You’re so rude.”

At first Zayn thought his shocked reactions were a form of flirtation—some sort of heavy-handed Cheshire irony—but now he wasn’t so sure. Innocence was not a word for the twenty-first century. Nor did it seem the natural quality of so glittering a creature. Zayn thought about asking him, but he stopped himself. Harry wasn’t here to satisfy Zayn’s idle curiosities. And it held its own fascinations: a man who talked like an innocent and fucked like a sybarite.

Later, Harry served up his Mama Anne’s cottage pie, and Zayn presented his salad.

“Babe.” Harry peered into the bowl. “What’s all this?”

“It’s pear and Roquefort,” Zayn said, with an airy wave.

“I was maybe finking some lettuce and tomatoes. This is proper MasterChef.”

Truthfully, it didn’t go. Not even a little bit. The cottage pie was about as wholesome and straightforward as one could get. It was food for winter evenings and happy days. And the salad was rich, complicated, a little bit sweet, a little bit sharp, and seemed to be trying way too hard to be impressive. They’d both served each other a metaphor.

Fan-bloody-tastic. If Harry noticed Zayn couldn’t have served a less suitable salad if he’d tried, he didn’t mention it. Harry just said he liked it and pronounced himself well stuffed at the end of the meal. Since he’d done the cooking, it seemed good manners to handle the washing up, which Zayn did by bundling everything into the dishwasher and leaving it to thrash away in its own time.

Zayn felt a sudden, anxious flutter of uncertainty. What was he supposed to be doing with Harry now? He needed to transition this cosy domesticity back to the safety of fucking—not all that advisable after a heavy meal. Mainly he just felt like sprawling on the sofa and . . . relaxing. What was wrong with him? Maybe Harry had put sedatives in the cottage pie.

They drifted back to the living room, silence bumping along awkwardly beside them. In an ideal world, Zayn would have been able to retire for brandy and cigars, and then come back when he was ready to fuck Harry. Dinner had just about exhausted Zayn’s capacity for conversation, and besides, what else could they possibly have to say to one another? Physical desire was about as much as Zayn was capable of mustering for anyone, and even that was transient, a thing of fading moments.

Harry bounced onto the sofa and, once again, Zayn was reduced to perching in his own bloody home. He just didn’t want either of them to get too comfortable. “Come on, babe.” Harry grabbed Zayn by his jacket and pulled him down. Zayn landed half on top of him, half between his long, long legs. Which Harry then proceeded to wrap lazily around Zayn.

“You’re creasing my suit.”

Harry just grinned.

Zayn tried to think of something to say, came up utterly blank, and then panicked. When had something as basic as talking to someone turned into an impossible task? If Zayn survived tonight, perhaps he could take up spinning straw into gold.

But Zayn should have known he could count on Harry.

“So what else do you like?” Harry asked incorrigibly.

The answer you, which served as both evasion and flirtation, rose to the tip of Zayn’s tongue, but he didn’t say it. What did he like? His pursuits were solitary to the point of solipsism and essentially performed the function of marking time. They were the things Zayn did in the spaces between depression. Like Vladimir and Estragon passing bowler hats around. And about as meaningful. His entire life subsumed into the act of waiting: waiting to be ill, then waiting to be better, the one consuming the other.

Desperation consumed him. “How about a game of Scrabble?”

“Aww, babe, I would, but you’ll have me. I’ll be like sitting there spelling, I dunno, cat and jug and you’ll be like getting hypoallergenic on a triple word score.”

“Hypoallergenic? Good God.”

“It’s on moisturiser, innit?” Harry’s fingers played idly along the back of Zayn’s hand, sending little gasps of sensation rippling across his skin. Zayn shook him off and tugged down his cuffs.

“Of course it is. But, um . . .” Zayn dug deep into his past as someone who was fun to be with. “We can play Nabble instead.”

“What’s that, then?”

“Well, it’s the opposite of Scrabble.”

“I think maybe rugby is the opposite of Scrabble.”

Zayn tilted his head so he could bestow upon Harry his most lascivious look. “Well, you’re very welcome to come scrum with me.”

“Wish I hadn’t eaten all that cottage pie now. Let’s do . . . what’s it . . . Nabble. And I don’t mind losing, really. Cos you’re sexy when you’re being clever.”

“Oh. Um.”

“You blushing?”

“No. So, Nabble. Basically you can only play words that aren’t in the dictionary.”

“You what? God, they teach weird stuff at university.”

Zayn took the opportunity to haul himself out of the ridiculous sprawl in which Harry had trapped him. “It’s really simple. Any made-up word counts, assuming you have the letters, and somewhere to place them, and you can make a case for what the word means. But if it’s not convincing, then it gets disqualified. So you couldn’t have, um, f-s-k-s-w-z for example, as it blatantly doesn’t mean anything. But you could have, I don’t know, dwelkin.”

“What’s a dwelkin then?”

“I think it’s probably a loosely knitted garment, a bit like a poncho, but made of yak hair.”

Harry considered it. “Yeah,” he said finally, “I can see that. I reckon there was probably like a trend a couple of summers back, but it never caught on proper cos they were awful.”

So Zayn dug out his dusty—very dusty—Scrabble set and they sat on the living room floor, playing Nabble. Eventually Zayn stretched out on his side, propping himself up with an elbow, nudging the letters around lazily with the fingertips of one hand. Harry, however, sat solemnly cross-legged, frowning over the board, a single lock of hair shaken loose from its place, hanging in front of his eyes. A banal setting for a glitter pirate but it did not dull him. The sight of him stirred a wanting that was starting to feel familiar, though it was less frantic tonight. It was a warm, steady thing, like a heartbeat.

Harry was uncertain at first but soon he was nabbling like an old hand. First came glink (“that look that happens when two people are fancying each other from across the dance floor”), then gloffle (“like when you put too much toffee in your mouth at once”), then mooshes (“ankle boots made out of crocodile leather with pompoms hanging on them, big in New Zealand”), rapazzled (“off your head, obviously”), and quimpet (“like when hair extensions get all weird up at the top like what happened to Britney”). And then, somehow, Zayn got silly and offered up svlenky to describe the motion of his hips while dancing, to which Harry responded with flinkling, which was apparently what Zayn’s brow did when he was coming up with something sarcastic to say. From there they moved through a few variations too ridiculous to be recorded, Zayn foolishly formulated glimstruck as a representation of how it felt to be around Harry, and then they graduated to kissing, still fully clothed like a pair of teenagers, on the wreckage of the Scrabble board.

Harry crashed over him like a wave and Zayn was drowning. Harry shone so brightly and Zayn was burning. Touched, by his hands and his body and his unintended mercies, Zayn needed his distance back. Difficult, though, when Zayn’s skin sang at Harry’s closeness and Zayn blazed with wanting. Zayn wanted to put his lips against Harry’s neck. He wanted to lick the sweat from where it would gather like glitter in the secret hollows of Harry’s flesh. Zayn wanted Harry naked in his arms, like Zayn had had him in Brighton, but with not even darkness between them this time. Zayn wanted to give Harry pleasure. Lavish him in it. Bedeck him with it, like pirate gold. Weave him a crown of all Zayn’s lost dreams. Zayn wanted to kneel at his feet and suck his cock. Zayn wanted him on his back, so he could look into his eyes while he fucked Harry.

“I want to watch you make yourself come,” Zayn said against his ear, breathless and terrified.

Harry’s head came up. “Err . . . what?”

“I want to watch—”

“No, I got it,” Harry said quickly. “I sort of meant why?”

_Because I need you to stop touching me. Because I want to touch you._ “Because I want to. And you did say you’d do what I said.”

“Yeah, but it’s embarrassing.”

“Why?”

Zayn felt uncertainty in the small movements of Harry’s body on his. “Well, it’s private, innit? And no point when I got you right here, babe.” Zayn felt him smiling as Harry kissed his neck. “More fun with two.”

“I bet you look hot.”

“No, I’ll probably look stupid.”

Zayn slithered a hand beneath Harry’s T-shirt, his palm seeking out the delicate ridges of his muscles, learning the hidden landscape of his skin. “Haven’t you ever wanted to watch someone else?”

“Um, I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Don’t you think it might be hot?”

“I dunno,” Harry said dubiously.

He tried again to kiss Zayn but he kept talking, his voice ringing distantly in his own ears, like he was giving a sex lecture to a vast and empty room. “Well, there’s always an extent to which the erotic intersects with our notions of the forbidden and the repressed. Often the things that seem the most outrageous to our sensibilities are the ones that carry the most powerful erotic charge.”

“You think way too much about everything, babe.”

Zayn made a clumsy attempt to right his clothes, pulling his jacket onto his shoulders again and tucking his shirt back into his trousers. “Please.”

There was a pause.

“You . . . uh . . . you really want me to like . . . with myself? With you watching? With all your clothes on?”

Zayn nodded. Fuck knew what his face was broadcasting.

“Well, alright,” Harry said, at last. “But if it goes weird I’m stopping.”

Zayn nodded again.

And, after a moment, Harry peeled off his T-shirt, baring an expanse of smooth, dark golden skin to his gaze. Zayn suddenly realised it was the first time he’d really had the opportunity to look at Harry, but it was not like looking at a stranger. As though Zayn’s fingertips had unconsciously sought the knowing of Harry in secret touches, and read him like fragments of braille. He was quite lovely somehow, all sleek lines and subtle definition. He was also perhaps the most groomed man Zayn had ever seen in real life, though the fake tan couldn’t hide the freckles that gathered across the tops of his shoulders and dusted his arms.

“Alright?” Harry said, looking awkward.

Zayn must have been staring.

“Oh, yes.”

Harry gave a slightly shy smile.

He wriggled out of his jeans, not without difficulty, making Zayn wonder how he’d ever managed to get into them, and finally out of his boxers. He took his uninspired cock in a half-hearted grip.

“You look gorgeous,” Zayn said.

“I feel like a right plum.”

“You’re beautiful.” Zayn meant it. He meant it so utterly he was choking on the beauty of him. He looked at Harry, as though it could be like touching, as though eyes could be pilgrims.

“Um, thank you,” he said after a moment, hand moving lazily upon his hardening cock.

“You must know. You’re a model, for God’s sake.”

Harry swallowed. “Yeah, but, you know.”

“What?” On impulse, Zayn put his hand on Harry’s hand, aligning his fingers over Harry’s, feeling the heat of his cock against his skin, through his skin. Harry’s breath hitched, colour gilding the tops of his wide, angular cheekbones.

“It’s just faking,” he mumbled, eyes fluttering like he was falling into a dream, or waking from one. “Could be a right punter underneath.”

“Bollocks. Now stop making excuses and get wanking.”

Harry tipped back his head and laughed. He was fully erect now, hot and heavy beneath their tangled hands, so Zayn left him to it. He put his back to the sofa, folded his trembling fingers about an upraised knee and watched, pouring himself into Harry’s every breath and his every motion, from the steady stroking of his hand to the involuntary flutter of his darkened lashes over his pleasure-closing eyes. Zayn saw the slow kindling of desire through his body, like a match put to the corner of a piece of a newspaper. He saw the tightening of the long, lean muscles of Harry’s calves. The slight curling of his exquisitely manicured toes. The eager darkening of his cock and the glisten of pre-cum that gathered on the head. The delicate feathering of his serratus anterior as he lifted an arm above his head. Zayn saw the sinewy invitation of his hips as he twisted a little and—

“What on earth is that?” Zayn asked.

Harry’s hand stilled. His lips clung to each other a moment before parting in speech. “What?”

“There’s a man’s name written on your body.”

“Oh yeah, nothing to be jell about, babe. It’s only my ex.”

“I’m not jell. Err, jealous.” Zayn tilted his head to better decipher a piece of ornate calligraphy. It appeared to read, somewhat bathetically for the amount of artistry that had gone into it, Niall. “It’s just,” Zayn went on, “you have somebody’s name indelibly inscribed on your flesh.”

Harry pushed himself onto his elbows, abandoning his cock completely. “Do you want to be talking about my ex or watching me do myself? Cos I reckon it’s either-or, babe. He’s like a mate now and it’d be proper cringe.”

There was something wrong with Zayn. Well, there were lots of things wrong with hm. But for some reason he seemed to be still asking about Niall. “I just don’t understand why you would do something like that. And for someone you’re not even dating anymore.”

“He was my first boyfriend. We were proper in love. Together for like months.”

“Wow, months. And this led you to brand yourself?”

“I think it’s nice.”

“I . . . have no idea what to say to that.”

“Well, the people you love are always gonna be with you. Like—” Harry tapped his chest. “—in your heart or whatever. So what’s the difference?”

“One of them is symbolic and the other is the word ‘Niall’ literally written on your arse.”

“No, it isn’t.” Harry paused. “It’s next to my arse.”

“Not the point.”

“Can’t believe we’re having this conversation with me sitting here with my bits hanging out. I just think, sometimes it’s nice to have stuff outside instead of inside.”

“I’m a lifetime subscriber to the private repression programme.”

“I just think you’re jell.”

“Jesus wept, I’m not jealous.”

Harry ignored him and, to Zayn’s surprise, wrapped a hand round his cock again. Zayn rather thought he’d killed the mood with his ridiculous questions, but apparently stupidity was one of Harry’s turn-ons.

“Like it when you look at me like that.”

Zayn didn’t know how he was looking at Harry, only that he was and he couldn’t look away. Harry’s hand moved harder and faster, in time with his quickening breath, drawing Zayn’s attention back to his cock. His own gave an unhappy, neglected throb. God, Zayn wanted to touch him. Harry’s mouth curved into a mischievous smile, his eyes a deep, lust-hazy green. “I think you’re like protesting too much.” He stroked the fingers of his spare hand over the pristine skin of his other hip. “You wanna see ‘Zayn’ written here? Or, you know, ‘Z.J. Malik,’ cos you’re all proper.”

“Just shut up and wank.” The unsteadiness of his voice betrayed Zayn. He’d only been teasing, but, in some twisted way, it was absolutely true. He would have written himself into Harry’s skin if only Zayn could, like a prisoner marking the walls of his cell, just to prove he was still alive and that he did not drift, untouching and untouched, through a universe of empty spaces and fading stars.

“You know,” Harry said, a few seconds later, “don’t you think it’s sort of like a waste?”

“Hmm?”

“Like . . . you know . . . this.” Harry briefly indicated his cock. “Wouldn’t you rather . . .?”

“Fuck?”

“Yeah.”

_Yes._ “No.”

“I think,” Harry said, after another moment, “maybe you do.”

There was a heavy scent of arousal in the air, skin and sweat, with a sticky chemical undertone of cologne.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.” Another pause. “What would happen if I like . . . tried something?”

Zayn swallowed, staring at the movement of Harry’s hand as though mesmerised by the gliding skin. “I would protest most vociferously,” Zayn said quietly. “And accuse you of reneging on our deal.”

Harry stopped. And pushed Zayn down onto the carpet, pinning him beneath Harry’s naked body, his hands briefly forming sweet, warm shackles about Zayn’s upper arms. Zayn could feel Harry’s heart thudding against his back and Zayn made a tormented, needy noise, utterly self-betrayed. Zayn wished he could be naked with Harry, but it was too complicated, too revealing. Zayn would settle for this.

“What’s reneging?” Harry whispered.

“Ch-cheating.”

Zayn twisted, pushing his hips up to meet Harry, burying his face in his forearms, the sleeves of his jacket cold, synthetic and wrong against his skin.

“Is this you protesting?” Harry asked, running a hand over Zayn’s arse and down the slope of Zayn’s back while Zayn trembled.

“Yes, oh God, Harry.”

“Just like checking . . . it isn’t really, right?”

Zayn turned his head and snarled at him, “Fucking fuck me, for fuck’s sake.”

“For a posho,” Harry said, scrabbling with the buttons on Zayn’s trousers and yanking them down, “you haven’t got any class.”


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, once again, Zayn found Harry repulsively chirpy, eating Weetabix and pawing his way through the newly delivered copy of The Guardian. Or rather the film and showbiz supplement.

“Morning, babe.” Harry looked up with a dazzling grin. “You do like the papers with lots of words in them.”

Zayn gave him a dour, it’s-too-early-for-anything-especially-you look. “And what is the use of a book, thought Harry, without pictures or conversations.”

“Clever bloke, that Harry. And I know I didn’t do good at school and all, but I have read Alice in Wonderland.” Harry hesitated a moment, before adding a bit sheepishly, “And I saw the movie.”

“Congratulations.”

“Yeah, I got culture too.” Zayn went to make a cup of tea while Harry burbled on. “When I was kid, we had these books what my mum used to have, with these red leather covers and gold lettering on them. I thought they were like proper quality, you know. We had like Robin Hood and Alice in Wonderland and The Lion. I used to read them all the time.”

Zayn made a bland noise, to indicate he was listening but only because he had no other choice.

“Sorry, babe,” Harry said. “I do run on. But speaking of culture and whatever, I was wondering . . .”

“Hmm?”

“I was like wondering . . .”

“What?”

“I’m like doing some modelling at Cheshire Fashion Week, cos—”

Zayn could not quite contain a spurt of laughter. “Cheshire Fashion Week? Do all the models go down the catwalk in white stilettos?”

Harry gave him a slightly wounded look. “Mate, that’s out of order. It’s being, I dunno, racist or something. You’re being racist against Cheshire.”

Racist against Cheshire, indeed. Zayn bit back the scornful response such a statement deserved. “I suppose you have a point,” he said, instead. “It is, after all, unacceptable to make judgements about other people based on the colour of their skin.”

“What’s wrong with you? That’s me you’re mugging off.”

“I was joking.”

“Were you?” said Harry, putting down his spoon with a clink, and regarding Zayn with rather cool green eyes. “Cos it sounded like you weren’t.”

Zayn sat down at the table. “Just forget it. Go on, tell me about Cheshire Fashion Week. Or your happy childhood memories. Or whatever else you want. I’m listening.”

Harry frowned, opened his mouth, and shut it again. Then frowned some more. “Yeah, alright,” he said finally, though still with a wary expression. “It’s sort of like Paris or London or Milan or whatever. Only like in Cheshire.”

“You do know there’s a bit of a difference in scale there, right?”

“It’s a big thing, babe.”

“Whatever you say.”

Harry took a deep breath. “Do you maybe wanna come?”

Zayn blinked. “To Cheshire Fashion Week?”

“Well, it’s only a day, really.”

“Wait. The Great International Cheshire Fashion Week is really only Cheshire Fashion Day?”

“Can you like stop being a bell end? Do you wanna come?”

“No.”

There was a long silence.

“Right,” said Harry.

Zayn took a sip of tea, relief banishing the stinging needles of anxiety that were darting up and down his arms, easing the tension that had settled on his shoulders. That had gone about as well as it ever did, and there was no further danger of false expectation. Or false hope.

“Why not?” asked Harry, sudden and swift as a blade.

“Pardon?”

“Why don’t you wanna go with me?”

“Because I can’t imagine anything more excruciatingly dull.”

“Right,” Harry said again. And then, coaxingly: “Aww, babe, it’ll be a right laugh. There’ll be like celebrities there and everything. You can meet all my mates, and my mum. And you’ll see me do my thing.” His eyes caught Zayn’s. “You like looking at me doing my thing.” He leaned over the table and put his fingertips playfully against Zayn’s lips, making him flinch back. “I think you’ll like it a lot.”

Even Zayn didn’t have the balls to try to deny that one. “Well, you’re moderately pleasing to look at.”

“Is that a yes?”

Go to Cheshire? To a fashion show? Throw himself among strangers and hope for the best? This wasn’t a book signing or an interview or a carefully orchestrated social occasion. It was the utter unknown. How could Zayn prepare for that? How could he make it safe when his ability to perform for the world came and went as randomly and unreliably as an ashamed lover?

And, someday, it would all come crashing down. And the world would see Zayn for what he was. And then he wouldn’t even have these pieces of pride to live for.

But maybe it would be fine. Maybe he would deride himself for ever having let terror paralyse him over something so trivial.

But maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the damn event would loom over Zayn like the shadow of a waiting hydra until he could barely get out of bed for dreading it. Maybe it would be nothing but a grim struggle, a quiet dying like an animal caught in a trap of spiked smiles and metal words.

“I c-can’t.”

“Why not?” asked Harry, as if the answer could be simple.

“I mean, I don’t want to.” God, what was wrong with him? Why couldn’t Zayn just tell him he was . . . mentally ill. But the words were stuck, sharp edged, in his throat. The truth was, Zayn would rather be a dick than a lunatic. He’d rather be hated than pitied. “It’s not my . . . err . . . thing.”

“How do you know what’s your thing until you’ve tried it?”

“I don’t have to stick a tarantula up my arse to know I wouldn’t enjoy it.”

“This’d be better than that, babe.”

“Wow, you’re really selling it.”

There was another silence, and Zayn thought perhaps this would be the end of the matter.

“So.” Harry drummed his fingers on the table. “You like sleeping with me but you don’t like being with me?”

“I’m not tattoo material, Harry.”

“Yeah, I got that, mate. But, you know there’s like a . . . thingy . . . a spectrum between marrying someone and just using them.”

“We all use each other,” Zayn said, “and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. At least nobody is lying.”

“Mate, that isn’t true. I don’t.”

Zayn gave him an arch look. “But you’re so very useable.”

Harry eyed him steadily. “Alright,” he said at last. “Your call, babe. I’ll send the tickets and you can bring your mates or whatever. Or you can throw them in the bin. I mean, the tickets. Not your mates.” He got to his feet.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. Got stuff to do, got a shoot tomorrow.”

“Oh, right. Yes, of course.” Zayn suddenly realised he’d probably never see him again. And he felt a little dazed. “Are you . . . will I . . .”

“Yeah?”

“. . . see you again?” Zayn finished pathetically, knotting his dressing gown cord round his fingers.

“Course.” Harry looked up. His smile flashed. “At Cheshire Fashion Week.”

Zayn’s heart twisted like somebody was trying to wring it out. He did his best impression of a charming smile, lifting what he hoped might be a provocative eyebrow. “One for the road?”

“I gotta get going.”

Harry was already halfway out of the kitchen, but Zayn went after him, caught him by his arms, and spun him against the doorframe, leaning up to kiss him hard and urgently. Just once more. Then Zayn would let him go. “What about a quickie then?”

“Uh, babe . . .” He laughed, a little awkwardly against Zayn’s mouth. “I’ll miss my train.”

“Fuck the train.” Zayn tried to smile. Tried to make desperation attractive. “Fuck me instead.”

He untangled Zayn. “I gotta go.” And did.

Alone, resoundingly alone, Zayn slumped onto his kitchen floor. Now who felt like a prozzie? He told himself to try to find it funny. Because it was, wasn’t it? In some grotesque, mortifying way.

           

 

              

 

A tatty brown envelope, with a Cheshire postmark and Zayn’s address incorrectly spelled, lay on his doormat. Zayn stared at his newly cleaned, very white whiteboard, trying to muster the energy to plot his next book. He’d squandered most of last year on something that was supposed to be a companion piece to The Smoke Is Briars, excavating what was left of his soul in pursuit of something worthwhile. But what was left of his soul had sucked, and now Zayn was behind schedule on the next Rik Glass, with no ideas and no interest. Oh, what was the point? It wasn’t even as though he needed the money. He owned the flat and a depressive’s expenses were close to negligible. But if he didn’t write, then he would literally do, and be, nothing. A complete waste of a life.

              

 

Half past three, sleepless, and wanking without satisfaction to the memory of the taste of lip gloss.

              

 

Glass Ceiling? Glass Half Empty? Stained Glass? Broken Glass? Sea of Glass? Smooth as Glass? Shattered Glass? Rose-Tinted Glass? Glass Houses?

              

 

What in God’s name had possessed Zayn to think “Glass” would be a sensible name for his detective?

Then he remembered: He’d only intended to write one book about him. Not six.

He should kill the bastard off.

              

 

Egelkraut Splettstößer. And Zayn could call the book whatever he damn well pleased. Assuming he was willing to write about the adventures of a fifty-year-old German housewife.

Fuck you, Rik Glass.

              

 

Rik Glass had run out of cigarettes and discovered a corpse in the middle of his living room.

              

 

Shot Glass? Breaking Glass? Glasshopper? Cracked Glass? Under Glass? Raise Your Glass? Ground Glass? Glasswork? Glass Blower? Maybe not. Fibre Glass? Wine Glass? Hour Glass? Glassolalia? Fuck it.

              

 

4:07 was the worst time. The world had stopped moving around Zayn. He was a prisoner of time. Memory tore at him like vultures. Why couldn’t he sleep?

              

 

It was not a good day. Not only had Rik Glass run out of cigarettes, but there was a dead body in his living room.

              

 

Homicide detective Rik Glass smelled burning flesh and knew— Damn it.

              

 

Harry. How can you miss something you’ve never really had?

              

 

Best-selling crime novelist Z.J. Malik sat at his desk unable to write and thought perhaps he would never have a good day again.

              

 

Afternoon was dripping into evening. Sleeping and waking had blurred into a grey haze. There was a packet of Weetabix on Zayn’s kitchen table, the gaudy yellow box burning his heavy eyes.

Zayn didn’t even like Weetabix, but he couldn’t find the motivation to throw it away.

His routines were crumbling around him. He could feel depression gathering like shadows in the corners of the room.

In short, Zayn was fucking up.

He put his head in his hands. Realised they were shaking. Folded his fingers together tightly until they stopped.

There was a tatty brown envelope, with a Cheshire postmark and his address incorrectly spelled, propped against the empty fruit bowl.

              

 

In the buttery half-light of a spring dawn, Zayn sat cross-legged on the floor where they had fucked atop the Scrabble board and opened Harry’s envelope. It contained, as Zayn had known it would, two glossy, complimentary tickets to Cheshire Fashion Week (Day).

There was no note. But on the inside flap of the envelope there was the shining pale pink imprint of his lips.

Zayn rested his chin on his palm to smother something that felt like it could become a smile.

Then he rang Louis.

His voice, when he finally answered, rasped with sleep and alarm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine, I just wondered if you wanted to come to Cheshire Fashion Week with me.”

“Jesus Christ, Zayn . . . it’s half past five. Have you taken your medication?”

“Yes, not insane at the moment, thanks. It’s next week.”

“Uh. What is?”

“Cheshire Fashion Week. Except it isn’t really a week, it’s only a day.”

Louis groaned. Zayn could picture him running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair and falling back against his pillows with a despairing flump. He was even worse in the morning than Zayn. It had led to grim and silent breakfasts. “I have to be up in forty-five minutes.”

“Will you come with me?”

“What? Where?” Louis asked. “I have a meeting this morning. It’s important.”

Perhaps Zayn shouldn’t have rung him so early. But his determination might have faltered if he’d waited. Zayn certainly couldn’t imagine making a decision like this at any other time. It had to be wrung out of him when he was weak, foolish, and impulsive. To say nothing of lonely, miserable, and half delirious with lack of sleep. “To Cheshire,” Zayn said, as patiently as he could. “Not today. Next Monday.”

“Why do you want to go to Cheshire?”

An unanswerable question. “Cheshire Fashion Week.”

There was a silence. “Is this a dream? Why the hell do you want to go to Cheshire Fashion Week?”

Because there’s a man Zayn can’t stop thinking about. Because he feels terrible and he wants Harry. “Research,” Zayn said.

“Research?”

“Y-yes.”

“You’re setting the next Rik Glass in Cheshire?”

“Uh, yes. It’s going to be called . . .” Zayn waited for inspiration to strike him from nowhere. And, unbelievably, it did. “. . . The Glass of Fashion.”

“Oh, that’s quite good.”

“Yes,” Zayn said dazedly. “Yes, it is.”

“All right, then. I’ll take a day off and pick you up next Monday.”

Zayn let the phone slip from his hand. In less than a minute, he’d somehow lost control of everything. He’d not only committed himself to attending a fashion show, but he’d claimed to be writing a book about it too. And the pretend book he would never have dreamed of writing even had a fucking title.

No plot, of course.

But it had a title.

Zayn went upstairs to his study and wiped his latest attempt at a decent outline off the board. It was, in all honesty, no loss. He stared at the white horizon, wondering who to kill. A brilliant but hated designer? An innocent young model? An embittered has-been? A prestigious guest? A resentful journalist?

He felt a little dizzy, as though he was standing on the edge of a cliff. But he wasn’t afraid. The vanishing point of the mind’s eye, the locus of the gyre, was whispering to him across imagined waves. It would have been, at that moment, effortless to step onto the breath of the wind and be borne away like a falcon. But it was only mania tugging on the kite string of his consciousness. Glittering promises that were nothing but ashes. Falling, not flying.

Zayn scribbled some notes while the ideas were fresh and, finally, crawled into bed. He had no expectation of rest. But he slept, deep and dreamless, and awoke safely on the ground. No cliffs or quagmires.

 

              

 

Cheshire Fashion Week was being held at a golf and country club, the sort of place that self-identified as a manor despite having been built in the 1990s. They eased into a gravel-lined car park not far from the main building, which was an inoffensive white square topped by a triangular roof that seemed to want to suggest chalet. Pale green countryside, most of which was golf course, surrounded them on all sides. So far, so chocolate box.

“Oh god,” said Louis, as a bevy of heavily bronzed women in tiny dresses tottered past on skyscraper wedges. “We’re a pair of pale-skinned brunettes in Cheshire. I think they’re going to burn us like at the end of The Wicker Man.”

Zayn nodded. “Or you’ll be whisked off to Room 101 and threatened with an immediate spray tanning.”

“And I’ll say: ‘Do it to Zayn, do it to Zayn!’”

“But,” Zayn said, in a brainwashed monotone, “I love Cheshire.”

Louis chuckled, the spring sunlight picked out a gleam of gold in his dark hair, and Zayn suddenly remembered, not so much with his mind but with a rush of unexpected feeling, why they’d once been friends.

They made their way towards the main entrance, following the crowds into which they absolutely did not blend. Zayn tried to ignore the stares. It seemed like people were trying to work out whether they were celebrities or not.

“Follow the orange brick road,” he whispered to Louis.

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” he whispered back.

Inside, a champagne reception was in full swing. Not wanting to jeopardise his equilibrium or start an argument with Louis, Zayn virtuously declined his free drink. They were in a fairly generic function room, most of which was taken up by a catwalk in the middle and a lavish VIP area. There was a lot of activity over there, the click and flash of cameras filling the air like a chorus of clockwork crickets. Cheshire seemed to really love its reality TV stars and talent show contestants.

They wandered over to the exhibition rooms, where there were a number of booths belonging to local boutiques, fashion brands, and salons. If Zayn had ever wanted hair extensions, now was clearly the time.

Louis, on his third glass of champagne, had relaxed enough to charm a very blond, very gay seventeen-year-old and buy a T-shirt which read “Live Young, Die Fast.” He took off his shirt and put it on immediately (much to the appreciation of the seventeen-year-old).

“I can’t tell whether it’s ironic, a mistake, or absolute genius,” said Louis. “But I think I love it.”

“It’s good,” avowed the seventeen-year-old, nodding sagely.

Just then came a cry of “Oh. My. God. Babe.” And Zayn turned just in time to receive an armful of Harry. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“Neither did I,” Zayn said, when Harry stopped kissing him long enough to allow him to answer.

“Aww, babe, you’ve made me so happy.”

“That’s like so beautiful,” said the seventeen-year-old.

“Research,” said Louis. “I see.”

Zayn blushed so hard, it was almost painful. As though he was about to spontaneously combust. “Um, yes. Harry, this is my friend Louis. Louis, this my . . . my . . . Harry.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Harry,” said Louis coldly.

Harry flashed one of his bright white grins. “Thanks, mate, glad you could make it.”

Louis glanced between Zayn and Harry.

Harry tugged on Zayn’s hand. “Come on, babe, you gotta meet everyone.” He wriggled. “I still can’t believe you came.”

Zayn cast a helpless glance in Louis’s direction. He shook his head and followed as Harry pulled Zayn into one of the side rooms. It was full of people. Golden-legged women in bright dresses. And athletic-looking men in very shiny, very pointy shoes. Oh, God.

“Alright, you lot,” Harry called out. “This is Zayn who I was telling you about. And his mate, Louis. They’ve come all the way down from London.”

They were surrounded.

Names flew shrieking past Zayn like fighter planes. Most of the women, at least, seemed to be called Lauren.

“This is Niall,” babbled Harry.

Zayn shook hands with a man who basically looked like the younger and the tamer version of Ramsay Bolton from the Game of Thrones. God. No wonder Harry had his name tattooed on his hip. If Zayn had slept with someone like Niall, he’d want the world to know it too.

“And this is my mum.”

Zayn bent down on instinct to receive a brief hug from a gorgeous woman who was the most sensibly dressed in their midst.

“And this is my sister Gemma.”

Zayn exchanged double-cheek kisses with Gemma Styles, who seemed to be gazing at Zayn in a weird way.

“She’s like my best mate in the world. I think I told you Gem’s got her own boutique,” added Harry proudly. “And these,” he gestured to indicate the clothes that surrounded them, “are all her designs. Me and Niall and some of the girls are gonna be modelling them later.”

“Congratulations,” Zayn said.

Gemma smiled, showing teeth as white and straight as Harry’s. “I love clothes, so it’s like a dream come true.”

Niall put a perfect hand gently on her shoulder. “You totally deserve it, Gems. You worked really hard for this. You should get me to do your PR for you. I’m thinking like quality geezas on the door with their shirts off.”

“I’m not sure that’s right, honey,” she said.

“You leave it to me, girl,” said Niall, enthusiasm undiminished by outright rejection. “There ain’t anything that don’t need quality geezas.”

The man had a point.

“Maybe you should do it, then,” said Harry mischievously.

“No, no, I’m gonna be organising it, aren’t I? Someone has to check the geezas. Make sure they look alright. I mean, bloke comes in, nice face, so you get him out there. Turns out he’s a right chubber. Can’t have that.”

Gemma turned to Zayn. “You should come see the shop, honey.”

“I don’t really need a sequinned minidress, thanks,” he said.

“I do men, too.”

“She isn’t lying,” said one of the Laurens, to great hilarity.

“It’s just down Brentwood,” she continued, when the laughter had died away. “It’s called Bedazzled.”

“Um, you know,” Zayn said, “you know bedazzled is a real word, right?”

She blinked, her lashes beating like the wings of a hummingbird. “Is it?”

“‘Pardon my mistaking eyes, that have been so bedazzled with the sun, that everything I look on seemeth green.’”

There was a long silence.

“Shakespeare,” Zayn said.

“Oh, honey,” breathed Gemma. “That’s so clever of you to know that. Harry, darling, he’s so clever.”

“Well,” Zayn said, “you invented it independently of Shakespeare, so that technically puts you on par with him.”

She shook her head, tossing a chaotic spill of wine-dark curls over her shoulders. “You’re so sweet, honey, but I wouldn’t get bedazzled like you said cos I always wear sunglasses.”

Beside Zayn, Louis burst into hysterical laughter.

Thankfully, at that moment, they had to go and take their seats because the show was starting.

“I want an explanation,” whispered Louis, as people began drifting slowly back to the main function room, carrying them along like flotsam.

“I wasn’t completely lying,” Zayn lied. “I am thinking of setting the next book here.”

“Not completely lying,” Louis snarled. “Fuck you. All you do, all you’ve ever done, is lie to me. And what about Daryl, or whatever his name is? I suppose you’re researching his cock?”

“It’s Harry. And I . . . I like him.”

Louis snorted. “How can you like him? Even putting aside the fact you’ve spent the last five years telling me you’re incapable of liking anyone, he makes Winnie-the-Pooh look like Kasparov.”

“Well, I wasn’t intending to play chess with him.”

“No shit. It’s pathetic, Zayn. Even for you. The depressive and the idiot.”

Zayn flinched, glancing around in case someone had overheard. “Can you keep your voice down, please? I don’t want everyone to know, okay?”

There was a pause.

“You mean you haven’t told him?”

“N-no.”

Louis shook his head. “You and your fucking lies.”

And then the lights dimmed and the show started. It consisted, for the most part, of a succession of big-haired, highly glossed, occasionally orange models strutting up and down in a variety of figure-revealing outfits. The designers and the dresses soon blurred into an interchangeable rainbow, and Zayn’s mind drifted, idle as smoke rings on a Sunday afternoon. He thought of Harry. Even here, where everything was bright and brash and fake, he glittered like something real.

It was terrifying to want something as much as Zayn wanted him. It was far too precarious and far too dangerous to imbue anything, or anyone, with that sort of power. Not when he couldn’t trust himself. All it did was make him into something else he would lose, destroy, or have taken away.

But, in truth, Zayn would have told a thousand lies to have Harry, and a thousand more to keep him.

As Louis had discovered a long time ago, the ability to make Zayn happy was its own curse.

“Oh, thank God,” Louis said, when the lights came up and the applause died away. “I was starting to lose the will to live.”

“I’m afraid there’s more later.” Zayn flicked through the booklet. “And we still haven’t seen Gemma’s collection.”

Louis peered over his shoulder and groaned. “Well, at least it wraps up with designer underwear. I’m not very interested in clothes, but I’m quite interested in watching muscular young men walk up and down in tight pants.”

“That’s our national sport, darling.”

Louis grinned. Perhaps Zayn had been forgiven. Again.

“I’m—”

But before he could finish, Harry came bounding over. It was all Zayn could do to repress his stupid smile.

“Babe.” Harry hunkered down in front his chair. “I got a massive favour.”

“Believe me, this is already a massive favour.”

“Yeah, I know. But the thing is, right, one of Gemma’s models has gone down with leprosy . . .”

“Wait,” interrupted Louis. “Leprosy?”

“That’s what Gems said. That thing with your throat where you can’t talk.”

“That’s laryngitis.”

“Oh, yeah. Anyway, babe, do you think maybe you could come and stand in or something?” He looked up at Zayn with huge, beseeching eyes. “Please, babe.”

“Holy fuck, no.”

“It’s not a big deal or nuffin.”

“It is a big deal. Harry, I could never do something like that. I’m sorry.”

Respected Crime Novelist Has Nervous Breakdown in Cheshire. On Catwalk. While Orange.

“You just have to walk up and down,” he said reassuringly. “You’re sexy, babe, I promise. You look more like a proper fashion model than I do.”

Flattering but very much not the point. Zayn shook his head. “I can’t. It’s . . . I just can’t.”

“He said no.” That was Louis. Zayn should have been grateful, but, somehow, he wasn’t. It was an unwanted reminder of Zayn’s own frailty and everything he should have been able to do but couldn’t.

Heedlessly, Zayn gripped Harry’s hand. “I’m so sorry.” He stared into his upturned, hopeful face. “Please don’t ask me to do this. I really can’t.”

Harry grinned and squeezed his hand. “It’s alright, babe. Just thought I’d give it a go.”

Zayn squeezed back. “You don’t . . . you don’t mind?”

“Course not. Still love you, babe.”

“Pardon?” But he’d bounced away.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” said Louis dryly. “That’s just the way they talk around here. They love everything. Especially hair spray. Shall we get going?”

“What? You want to leave?”

“I thought you would.”

“But . . .” Zayn cast a slightly hopeless glance in the direction Harry had gone.

Louis made an impatient sound. “This is fucking ridiculous. I don’t know what’s going on with you and Harry—”

“It’s the sex,” Zayn drawled. “It’s fantastic.”

Louis continued as if Zayn hadn’t spoken. “But you need to get over it, right now. Before someone gets hurt. Before you hurt yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re ill, Zayn. You’re not capable of living a normal life. You know it. I know it. But do you think it’s something Harry is going to understand or accept? You haven’t even told him you’re bipolar, for God’s sake.”

“It hasn’t been a problem with him,” he said faintly.

“Oh, come on, you’re giving him false expectations. Have you seen the way he looks at you? He’s going to want things from you that you just can’t give him. Like today. Like now. You’re lying to him and lying to yourself. You’re building a house of cards and it’s going to come crashing down. I can’t keep saving you.”

“I seem to be quite busy with all this lying and building you have me doing,” Zayn snapped. “And, for the record, I’ve never wanted you to save me.”

“Without me you’d be dead or in an institution.”

Zayn stood up, and then blurted out: “Well, maybe false expectations are better than no expectations.”

Louis shrugged. “Let’s not have this argument. Let’s go home.”

“Fuck you,” Zayn said.

And ran after Harry.

He’d long since been swallowed by the crowd, so, after some aimless shoving, Zayn made for Gemma’s booth. She was surrounded by people in various states of undress and looked about as stressed as someone could look, but she still had a smile for Zayn.

“Harry . . .” he panted, “. . . he said you needed help.”

“Oh, honey, are you sure? He didn’t think it would be your thing.”

“It’s not, but . . . I’ll . . .” Zayn felt suddenly sick on the magnitude of it all. “. . . try. Though if you come near me with spray tan, I will end you.”

She giggled. “Alright, honey. You’re literally saving my life here.” She kissed him chastely. She smelled sweet and sticky, and her lips tasted faintly of strawberries. In some strange way, it reminded Zayn of Harry and gave him courage.

She dived into her rails of clothing and returned a few moments later with her arms full of dark fabric.

“Try this, honey.”

Zayn clutched and looked round anxiously for somewhere to change that wasn’t in full view of Cheshire.

Gemma nudged him into a sheltered corner and pulled some of the racks in front of him. “There you go.” She smiled and left him to it.

Oh God. Oh God.

Just don’t think about it.

Zayn shed his bespoke suit and stuffed it into a Tesco’s carrier bag he found lying on the floor (oh, how the mighty have fallen), and then slithered into a pair of artfully distressed waxed denim jeans that fit so tightly they came perilously close to being leggings. There was no way his wallet wouldn’t ruin the line, so he dug out his Oyster card and his door key and slid them into the back pocket as though he was a sixteen-year-old on the pull.

Oh God. Oh God.

Zayn hadn’t worn anything like this since . . . well. Before hospital at least.

And then he shook out the top, which turned out to be a very low-cut V-neck in Jersey cotton, also distressed, with ripped sleeves and a pattern of holes and tears about the neckline and across the front.

Zayn clutched it to his naked chest like an assaulted Victorian virgin.

“Gemma,” he whispered. “Gemma. I can’t wear this.”

“Course you can, honey. What’s the problem?”

Before he could stop her, she swept behind the racks and—in sheer fright—Zayn dropped the T-shirt.

“Fuck.” He scrabbled after it, an operation rendered both difficult and intimately painful by the jeans. And then Gemma gently caught his wrist, and he froze.

The pad of her index finger traced the long, jagged scar that ran up his forearm. Zayn normally wouldn’t have allowed anyone to do that, but it was as if she held him bewitched with the warmth of her painted eyes.

“Oh, honey,” she said softly. “You were really going for it.”

Zayn shuddered, then nodded.

She let him go, leaving the rest untouched. He was relieved. The ruined skin on his arms burned and shivered like a waking monster.

The next moment, she was all business again, casting an appraising look over the rest of him.

“You look lovely,” she said. “It really suits you, that look.”

“Scarred and shirtless?”

“But,” she continued, ignoring him, “you’ll need a belt with those.” She pointed helpfully in the direction of his hips. “Put the top on and I’ll get you like a coat or something. And some boots.”

She was back in what felt like seconds, with a studded belt and some heeled, snakeskin-patterned boots that Zayn was still dazed enough to put on without protest.

“I was going to have Harry modelling this with nothing else.” She smirked and passed Zayn what appeared to be a loose-knit octopus.

Good lord, a dwelkin.

“Wait, just this?” Zayn said. “It’s a cardigan.”

She gave a horrified shriek. Suicide and self-harm were something this girl could take in her stride. But cardigans were beyond the pale. “It’s not a cardigan,” she squeaked. “Well. It is a cardigan but it’s like . . . a real glamour cardigan, do you know what I mean?”

“I think Gemma, that’s what they call an oxymoron.”

“A what?”

“A contradiction in terms.”

“Well, they haven’t seen my cardigans, have they? Put it on.”

Zayn stuck his arms through the sleeves. It was basically a cross between a cardigan and a shawl, with waterfall lapels at the front and a pair of asymmetric tails at the back that flowed down past his knees. There was also a sort of scarf, which turned out to be very long and growing like a set of tentacles from the collar.

“I feel like I’m in hentai,” Zayn muttered as he got tangled up.

“What’s that, honey?”

“Nothing.”

She caught up the two ends of the scarf and wound them about his neck and shoulders, letting them fall loosely where they would. It should have been an ill-intentioned object, but the wool was incredibly soft. Maybe Zayn was losing it in his old age, but he genuinely liked it.

Also, Gemma was right. The thought of Harry wearing nothing but this was pleasing in the extreme.

She smiled proudly at him. “See. It’s like a cardigan but like not a cardigan. Like sexy but snuggly.”

“Well I’m neither sexy nor snuggly.”

She giggled. “That’s not what Harry says.”

Zayn blushed.

“You aren’t going to tell him, are you?” Zayn said.

“Tell him what?”

“About my . . . about . . .” Zayn gestured to his arms. “I just don’t want him to know.”

She gave one of her slow, contemplative blinks. “Do you think just cos he’s happy he has never had something bad happen to him?” Before Zayn could answer, she went on, “Now, honey, I know you said no to spray tan and I’m totally respecting that, but how do you feel about bronzer?”

About ten minutes later, Zayn was bronzed, glossed, quiffed, lash-curled, and guy-linered. What the fuck had he done? He stared at a stranger’s reflection in the mirror. To be fair, it wasn’t awful. It just wasn’t him.

But then again, Zayn hasn’t really recognised himself for a very long time.

He drew in a few slow, steadying breaths. All he had to do was keep breathing, walk a few meters down a catwalk, and come back again.

Maybe he could do this. Maybe he could.

Zayn nearly laughed aloud at how easy it seemed just then. The stranger’s eyes shone.

“Oh my god, babe.” Harry’s reflection appeared next to his and Zayn spun quickly away. He was wearing ripped jeans, a white shirt split to the navel, and a slim-fitting blue velvet jacket. “You look nice.” His eyes travelled up and down Zayn’s body, making Zayn hot and self-conscious and thrilled all at once. “Really nice. Like . . . like Sandy at the end of Grease.”

Zayn’s mouth fell open. “Did you really just compare me to Olivia Newton-John?”

“I just meant like going from, you know, prim to all sexed up.”

“I feel . . . weird.”

“You look amazing. Amazing.”

Harry pulled Zayn against him, hands snaking under the glamour cardigan to make the acquaintance of his arse.

Gemma gave a warning screech. “Don’t smudge him!”

Harry grinned, tilting his head because, in his heels, Zayn was just a little bit taller than he was. “You’re giving me chills, babe.”

“Is that so? Are they multiplying?”

“Hundred percent.”

“You’d better shape up, then.”

“You’re like totally the one that I want. Thank you for doing this, babe. You didn’t have to, you know.”

“I . . . know. I just. I don’t know. I just hope I don’t fuck it up.”

“What’s to fuck up, babe? It’s just walking down a room with everybody thinking they want to do you.”

Zayn gave a shaky, unconvincing laugh.

“I know it isn’t you,” Harry said, after a moment. “But it’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Fear isn’t rational.”

He nodded. “We’ll be cheering you on all the way.”

Zayn raised a brow. “And wanting to do me?”

“Always, babe. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.”

Heedless of Gemma’s warning, Zayn kissed him. It was a claggy business.

When they unstuck their mouths, Harry was laughing. “I think we just swapped lip gloss.”

The next twenty minutes of Zayn’s life rushed by like motorway traffic and he had no idea how he got through them. The only thing he could recall with any certainty was the heat of Harry’s hand holding his. Backstage at a fashion show, it turned out, was madness without method. Nothing but shouting and running, a tornado of light and chaos and shoes. It was impossible to understand what was happening, but somehow things came together. And the models, who had been dishevelled and borderline hysterical in the seconds before, glided onto the runway like swans.

Could he do this? Zayn didn’t think he could do this.

“I’m gonna be right back,” said Harry. “Just gonna do my thing.”

Zayn’s hand clenched about his, his nails pressing pale, desperate smiles into his skin. But he had to let Harry go. So he did.

Then Gemma was hustling Zayn to one side. “This way,” she whispered. “You can watch him.”

Backstage, unsurprisingly, afforded a poor view. Through a dazzle of light, Zayn watched Harry recede and then come back to him. His face, his body, the way he moved were all so composed that it wasn’t until he stepped through the wings, grinning, that Zayn quite believed in his return.

“See, babe,” he said. “It’s noting. Serious face on. Giving it a bit of strut.”

It was slightly too late to say that Zayn didn’t strut or that he really didn’t want to do this. But when he stepped onto the catwalk, all of Harry’s friends leapt to their feet and burst into wild cheering. Cheshire, obviously thinking something important was happening, did likewise. Zayn didn’t think he was much of a model, but he walked, turned, and did not fall over, cresting a wave of entirely undeserved appreciation that continued even as he fled into the wings, where he landed, breathless but safe in Harry’s arms. Kissing him to a chorus of applause that flashed like fireworks behind his eyes.

From there came a haze of laughter and congratulations, Gemma’s voice rising stridently across the noise: “You know what, honey, you can have the glardigan. It’s yours.”

“G-glardigan?”

“Yeah, it’s like glamour and cardigan, innit?”

Of course.

The day unravelled into evening, event into after-party, sweeping Zayn along with it. A group who—Harry informed him—had been on Ex-Factor performed to great enthusiasm, and then a DJ took over. They tumbled round a table near the bar, Niall going to secure the first round.

The revelation that Zayn didn’t drink inspired a squeal of glee from Harry’s friends.

“They’re meant to be together!” cried one of the Laurens. “So romantic.”

Harry wound an arm round Zayn’s waist and said quietly, “You gonna come dance with me later?”

Zayn put his lips to Harry’s ear. “I want to fuck you later.”

Harry gave him one of his wide-eyed, shocked looks, but Zayn knew he was only teasing.

Suddenly Zayn felt a hand on my shoulder. He looked up, and there was Louis.

“I didn’t fuck it up!” Even Zayn could hear how absurdly giddy he sounded, too bright, too happy, as though, at any moment, he would swoop away on the wings of mania. He tried to care, but he couldn’t.

“Well. Congratulations.” Zayn caught the sourness of drink upon Louis’s breath.

There was an awkward silence.

“He was so good, Louis,” said Gemma valiantly. “You would have thought he was like a professional model.”

“I, um, I thought you’d left,” Zayn said.

Louis scowled. “As if I could. Someone has to take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself,” Zayn muttered, with all the dignity of a teenager.

“Cheshire is very safe,” said Niall, returning with a tray of drinks and passing them round. “Like there was this one time, right, when Harry thought he was being burgled.”

A ripple of amusement passed over the table and Harry put his face into his hands. “You always have to tell this story.”

“Cos it’s hilarious, that’s why. So Harry here was carrying on like a right girl, totally freaking out, ringing me up, being all ‘What should I do, what should I do, I think there’s somebody trying to get in through the patio doors.’ And I was like ‘Phone the police, you donut, what am I supposed to do about it?’”

He paused with the casual ease of an experienced raconteur, dropping down into a free chair, and extending both arms across the shoulders of his neighbours.

“So there he goes, creeping down the stairs at three in the morning, with me on the phone and armed with an eyebrow pencil—”

“It was sharp,” put in Harry.

“And, you know what, right? It’s a duck out there.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Harry, “but it was obviously trying to burgle me. It was a bad duck.”

“I think we should be going,” interrupted Louis. “We need to get back to London.”

“But I don’t want to go,” Zayn said plaintively.

“It’s alright,” said Harry. “He can stay with me. Protect me from bad ducks, right, babe?”

 Zayn tucked his head against Harry’s shoulder. “See, he needs me.”

“Aww, I do.” Harry looked up at Louis and smiled. “We’ll be alright. I’ll take care of him.”

Zayn saw something flash across Louis’s face like a shadow. He sat upright, filled by a sudden, despairing premonition. Zayn shivered, even in the warmth of the glardigan, and flashed Louis a frantic look, as though, in a split-second, he could make him understand: Please don’t do this to me. Let me have this. Let me have this happiness.

“You can’t take care of him,” Louis said flatly. “He’s a type 1 bipolar depressive with clinical anxiety disorder. I don’t think you even know what that means.”

For a moment, Harry was silent. His was the only response that mattered, though Zayn told himself it didn’t. Watching him was like waiting for an axe to fall, but Zayn could not look away.

“I do actually,” he said, at last. “I saw a thing on the telly with Stephen Fry.”

Louis gave a harsh, barking laugh. “Oh, you saw a thing with Stephen Fry. Well, thank God for that, we’re saved. Did you get that, Zayn? You’re going to be fine. He saw a thing with Stephen Fry. We’re in the presence of a fucking expert here.”

“I didn’t say I was an expert in anything,” said Harry slowly. “Just that I wasn’t totally clueless.”

“I remember reading something in a magazine,” added Gemma, “about Robbie Williams. Isn’t he bipolar as well? He used to be in Take That anyway.”

“Was it Gary?” asked one of the Laurens.

Gemma shook her head. “No, he was the one what was struggling with his weight. I think it was Robbie.”

Louis slammed his hand onto the tabletop, knocking over a couple of drinks and causing Harry’s friends to jump to their feet screaming in fear for their minidresses. Only Harry didn’t move.

“You don’t have a fucking clue,” Louis yelled, over the chaos. “And I’ll tell you now, you can’t fucking handle it.” He threw his words down like swords. “What are you going to do when he won’t get out of bed or take his medication? When he cuts words into his arms, drinks when he shouldn’t, takes drugs when he shouldn’t, or sleeps with strangers who are bad for him?”

Harry flinched.

“Or what about when he keeps you up all night because he can’t sleep. Or has a panic attack out of nowhere. And, let’s not forget: what about when he tries to kill himself, again? Or he has another manic episode and won’t eat or sleep or stop talking, and thinks he’s . . . what was it again, Zayn? Oh yes, Thomas Mallory, and the second coming of Arthur Pendragon.”

Zayn stared at him, silent and stricken. He didn’t dare look at anyone else. Least of all Harry.

“What about it?” said Harry, finally.

Louis shook his head. “You have no idea, do you? You have to live with it, or the threat of it, every single day. Do you really think you could cope with that?”

“I dunno.” Harry shrugged. “Maybe it isn’t about coping or not coping. Maybe it’s just about wanting to be with someone.”

“You’re so fucking naïve.”

Harry stood up. He was taller than Louis and frowning. “I don’t think I am. I think you just think I am cos I don’t talk or think like you do.” He paused.

Zayn couldn’t stand it. Voices were swirling around him, talking about him but not to him.

“You can’t help him, Harry. You can’t make him better.”

“I didn’t say I was going to.”

“You can’t make him happy either.”

Harry shrugged. “I think I’ve got the right to try.”

It was like being in hospital again. Reduced from the first person to the third. From subject to object. Zayn was disappearing into other people’s sentences. He wanted to speak, but he didn’t dare. He didn’t know how it would sound. Whether his voice would break. If he had the right to want anything at all. What use to the sane, after all, were the words of the mad?


	7. Chapter 7

Zayn stood up, turned, and walked away, the lights blurring to smears in his eyes and Louis’ castigations stinging his skin as though he’d carved them himself. Again. By the time he’d stepped outside, Zayn was running into the night.

Because that was absolutely the way to prove his sanity.

Zayn heard a voice calling his name, but he couldn’t stop. Zayn couldn’t seem to breathe enough air.

And he felt paper-thin and utterly unreal. Shredded. All Zayn wanted to do was put a barrier of distance between him and everything that had just happened.

If only he could also outrun himself.

Maybe it would not be so terrible, to disappear entirely, to drift away in fragments beneath the moon, like pieces of torn of lace.

To cease to be.

That was something Zayn could never make Louis understand, though he didn’t know how hard he’d tried. He had never wanted death, merely cessation; unfortunately, sometimes, they seemed to be the same thing.

Louis had done nothing but tell the truth, though he had wielded it like a weapon. But it was hard to forgive him for it.

And Harry? Oh, Zayn couldn’t bear to think about Harry.

Zayn had never felt quite so ugly, helpless, or naked. But it had been his own fault, for trying to pretend he was otherwise.

Was it cold? Zayn thought it might be cold. It was certainly dark. But these considerations beat against him like his body was a window pane. He was visible, but unreachable. A prisoner of himself.

Where was he?

Zayn had slowed to walking. A road ran by (though not to Camelot). Fields lay on either side.

Oh, fuck.

Lunatic Writer Lost in Cheshire.

Maybe he was going to be murdered. Torn apart by wolves. Maybe he’d starve to death under a hedgerow. What did a hedgerow even look like?

Okay. These were not rational thoughts. That, at least, he recognised.

The important thing was not to panic.

Like a shark scenting blood in the water, anxiety rushed over him in a great, devouring wave.

No, really, Zayn, don’t panic.

He fumbled for his phone.

Of course. Of course. He’d left it with his four-thousand-pound suit.

So Zayn had a panic attack. A full-on heart-pounding, breath-choking, sweat-pouring, absolutely mortifying panic attack that sent him sobbing and shuddering to his knees in the middle of nowhere.

Minutes, hours, years, eternities later, Zayn put himself back together. Still alive.

Somehow.

Still breathing and still alive.

Zayn had two choices: He could go back, or he could go on. Going back was simply not an option. And didn’t they say all roads lead somewhere?

(Was this madness?)

Zayn kept walking and, sure enough, in about five minutes he came to a roundabout and a sign pointing the way to a Station. Another five minutes, and the red circle with the blue line loomed out of the darkness like the word of God. Zayn would never have imagined the Underground sign could have been such a wonderful sight.

He traced a route on the Tube map. Central line to Woodford. Central line to Bank.

That was. That was easy.

For a brief, fleeting, blissful moment, Zayn felt in control of his world. He felt normal.

And fuck Louis.

 

              

 

Exhaustion set in after Zayn had changed trains, along with a heavy misery that seeped into him like winter drizzle. Darkness rattled past. But it was all right. That darkness was taking him home. He could pull it round him like a cloak. Occasionally he let himself think of Harry. It felt like poking at an open wound, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

Louis was sitting on the steps outside his flat, staring bleakly into the middle distance.

“My god, Zayn.” He pulled himself up with the railing the moment he saw Zayn approach. “I’ve been ringing and ringing. Are you okay? You look terrible.”

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

“How did you get home?”

“I took the train. Because sometimes, on very special occasions, I am almost a human being.”

Louis came towards him and Zayn pulled back, glaring.

“Zayn, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t care. I never want to see you again.”

“Zayn.” He spread his hands helplessly. “You have to understand. I never meant to hurt you. I was trying to protect you.”

“I liked him.”

He sank back down onto the steps and put his head in his hands, hair falling forward in front of his face. Zayn watched him torturing himself and felt nothing. Not even satisfaction for what Louis had done to him tonight.

“How can you like someone like that?” Louis asked finally. “You have nothing in common. What can you possibly have to talk about?”

“He made me feel good. And you fucked it up.”

“If he meant that much to you,” he said sharply, “you’d have told him yourself.”

“Well, that’s up to me, isn’t it?” Zayn threw the words back at him. “Maybe I liked looking into someone’s eyes and seeing something other than pity, resentment, and guilt.”

“If that’s what you see in my eyes, it’s because you put them there.”

“Get the fuck off my steps.”

But Louis didn’t move. And Zayn wanted to be inside, surrounded by walls he had chosen. “Why him?” Louis asked, grabbing for Zayn as he tried to scramble past. “What does he give you that I couldn’t?”

Zayn shrugged. “For starters, he’s not trying to prove to someone else what a saint he is for being with me.”

Louis went white. “I . . . that’s not true.” And then, rather desperately, “I love you, Zayn.”

“I don’t want your love.” Zayn shook him off and climbed the remaining steps to the front door. “Your love is fucking worthless.”

“But I just wanted to make you happy.” A note of pleading crept into his voice, and Zayn ignored it. “Why wouldn’t you let me? I always told myself it was you, not me, that you couldn’t. That you were too broken. But . . . but now you’ve found someone who does make you happy, so it must have been me all along.”

And then he started to cry, hoarse, gulping, undignified sobs that forced their way out of his throat as though they were choking him. Zayn had never seen him cry before. And tonight he didn’t care.

“I just wanted to fix you,” he said.

“This is who I am.” Zayn put his key to the lock. “I don’t need fixing.”

Zayn let himself inside and went to bed.

He didn’t know when Louis left.

 

              

 

When the doorbell buzzed a couple of hours later, Zayn’s instinct was to ignore it, but it kept on buzzing.

Zayn dragged himself out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown, and went to growl into the speaker, “Will you leave me the fuck alone?”

“Bit harsh, babe,” said Harry’s voice. “I got your suit and your phone.”

Zayn never wanted to see him again. To see disgust, or pity, or discomfort reflected on his face where there had been laughter, admiration, and lust.

But it was a bit late to pretend Zayn wasn’t in.

“Fine. I’ll come down.”

Harry was standing on the doorstep, looking unbelievably, unbearably shaggable, limned in silver moonlight and holding the carrier bag with Zayn’s suit in it. “You alright?” he said.

“Thank you for this. You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.”

“Aww, babe, I’d be so lost without my phone. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

“Right. Um. Yes. Thanks. Good-bye.”

“You what?”

“Thank you for returning my things. Good-bye.”

“I tried to come with you before,” he said quickly. “But you run fast for a skinny guy and I couldn’t find where you’d gone. I’d have looked like an idiot wandering around in circles in the dark for hours and hours with you being tucked up in bed.”

An unexpected, unwarranted tingle of pleasure ran through Zayn at his easy assumption that—even running into the night without a coat or mobile phone—he’d basically be fine. But then, he didn’t know any better. He wouldn’t. Zayn had done nothing but lie to him.

“You could have been set upon by a whole gang of ducks,” Zayn said.

“Aw, babe, don’t joke about it. Ducks are roofless, I’m telling you. Now are you gonna let me in or what?”

“I had a panic attack,” he blurted out.

“What?”

“I had a panic attack. On the way home.”

“Aww, babe, are you alright now?”

“Yes.”

“So can I come in?”

What was this? Kindness? Guilt? Naïvety, as Louis had said? “Did you want something?”

Harry gave a shy sort of smile. “Well, you said earlier about . . . you know—” His eyes darted anxiously left and right as if he were about to try to sell Zayn something that had fallen off the back of a van. “—doing it. I’ve come to collect. Cos you were really sexy today.”

Zayn couldn’t imagine at what point he’d been even remotely sexy. Did Harry mean when he’d worn a cardigan? Or when Louis had spat out all his secrets? Or when he’d run away from them?

“I’m not up for a pity-fuck, Harry.”

He blinked. “I don’t pity you, babe. I think you’re doing alright, actually.”

Zayn made an odd sound. It had started as a laugh. “I’m really not.”

“Not being rude or anything, but I think what I want to think about you is up to me, babe.”

There was a long silence. How ridiculous, standing there barefoot in the entranceway to Zayn’s flat, clinging to a Tesco’s bag, and feeling . . . what? Something sweet and fragile. Far too fragile. “You . . . still want me?” Zayn regretted the wretched words as soon as he’d uttered them. Insecurity was such an attractive trait.

“Yeah,” he said and stepped inside.

Zayn let Harry into the flat and flung the bag with Zayn’s poor suit in it into a corner by the hatstand. They stood awkwardly in the hall, Harry hopping about on one leg like a demented flamingo as he pulled off his boots. Zayn was being stupid. He’d been here before. They’d already slept together. That’s the main—possibly only—reason Zayn let people into his flat. Bright moments gleaned from the clumsy communion of anonymous skin. That was all Harry was ever supposed to be.

“Do you want something,” Zayn heard himself say. “Like a tea or some water or something?”

“No, babe, I’m good.”

There was a hideously self-conscious silence.

“Bedroom through there,” Zayn said at last, pointing.

“You know, I always thought you had a dead body in there or something. Cos like you’ve never let me in.”

“And you slept with me anyway?”

Harry grinned. “I guess I must’ve thought it was worth it.”

“No dead body. I’m just . . . private.”

He stepped inside. “It’s like a library in here.” And then, “The bed is massive, babe.” And then, “Is this you? You look different.”

“It’s my graduation photo. I was very young.” Nothing but a boy on the brink of madness.

“Do you still have the robe thing?”

“Somewhere.”

Harry gave him a hopeful, coquettish look.

“Don’t even think about it. That’s a very prestigious piece of academic dress.”

Zayn let him wander amongst the pieces of his life, picking things up and putting them down again, peering at photographs and pictures. The one Harry had given Zayn was still unframed, but he hadn’t thought to take it down from where it was propped on one of the bookshelves. The sight of it made Harry grin.

“I knew you liked me, babe.”

Zayn rolled his eyes. “I just haven’t found anywhere to put it yet.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Harry reached up and ran his hand over the peacock feather fan hanging on the wall, emerald green and turquoise spilling between his fingers, then winked at Zayn. Cheeky bastard.

Zayn scowled. “Those boxers were unfortunate. They’re not my usual taste.”

“You were like Cinderella, babe, running off, leaving only your pants behind.”

“If you’re my Prince Charming, I want a refund.”

Harry laughed, picking up a feathered carnival mask and peering through its empty eyes. “Didn’t think of you as a clutterer.”

“Just in here.”

“What’s with the fans and the masks and everything?”

Zayn shrugged. “I like the beauty of artificial things.”

“Oh my God, babe.” He pointed at the wall. “What’s this? No offence, but I think that’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s quite all right, I didn’t paint it.”

Harry leaned forward in transfixed horror. “Why have you got a picture of a naked girl and a skeleton?”

“I, err, I like the naked girl and the skeleton.”

It was perhaps the first time Zayn had ever seen Harry lost for words.

“It’s a Paul Delvaux,” Zayn added, trying to explain. “Just a print, obviously. The original’s in the Tate Modern. He painted a lot of naked women in strange situations.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“Um, exposure to waxworks at an impressionable age?”

“I dunno how she’s managed to doze off with that skeleton staring right at her. And what’s that other naked one supposed to be doing? She looks like she’s trying to get a taxi to take her home after living it a bit large.”

Zayn crossed the room and contemplated Sleeping Venus. “I can honestly say I’ve never noticed that before.”

“And what about those fellows at the back? What are they supposed to be? Dads at a disco?”

“I think maybe they’re lamenting.”

“They should be, dancing like that.”

Zayn put a hand across his mouth, but it was too late. He was laughing. There was nothing for it. Zayn turned Harry round and kissed him, clumsy with amusement, breath and warmth and mirth mingling in the chalice of their pressed-together lips.

“Want me to get the light, babe?”

Zayn shook his head and, before his courage could fail, yanked off his dressing gown in the world’s most impulsive and ineffective striptease.

Harry’s eyes blurred to stormy grey. “Wow, babe, all this time you didn’t even have your pjs under there. You should’ve said. I wouldn’t have bothered with the paintings.”

Zayn spoke, once again, without thinking. “Sure you want me?”

Harry’s fingers climbed his ribs and then skated the ridged flesh that marred Zayn’s arms from elbow to shoulder, raising a trail of goose bumps almost lost in the ruin.

“Of course.” Harry kissed him lightly. “You’re so pale, babe. Think I must have some kind of thing for vampires or something”

Zayn laughed. Again. “Well at least I’m not an orange-utan.”

“Ooh, that’s out of order.”

“Going to make me sorry?”

He let out an unsteady breath. “Yeah.”

Zayn pushed him down onto the edge of the bed and knelt across his thighs. Harry cupped a hand at the back of his neck and pulled him into another kiss, sliding his tongue into Zayn’s opening, moaning mouth. It was strange for Zayn to be naked when Harry was not, slightly vulnerable, but, just then, it didn’t trouble him. It brought with it a patchwork of sensation, the cool air and the heat from his body, the roughness of denim and the softness of velvet, all mingled with the pressure of his lips and hands, the places where Harry’s skin brushed against his. Zayn’s cock rose between them and Harry wrapped a hand round it, rolling his palm slow-hard-perfect across the head. Zayn closed his eyes, gasping, and Harry did it again.

“What was I being sorry for?” Zayn said.

“Dunno. But are you?”

“Oh yes,” he murmured. “Very.”

“Yeah?”

“Y-yes.”

Harry’s other hand glided over his shoulder and slowly down his chest, nails scraping lightly over a nipple. Zayn fell into him, hips driving his cock into the channel of Harry’s hand, as he shuddered, helplessly wanting. Harry’s breath curled across the top of his ear, and he made a sound of encouragement, pleasure, Zayn wasn’t sure.

“I haven’t ever,” Harry whispered “. . . with anyone like you.”

Zayn ground himself against Harry, his mouth pressed against the side of Harry’s neck, flooding with the taste of his skin, a touch of salt, the sour edge of his cologne, and the indefinable essence, spring water clear, that was Harry himself.

“You mean,” Zayn panted, “posh? Insane? Selfishly devoted to the pursuit of my own pleasure? What?”

“Like . . . free. And you’re not selfish, babe. Having a good time here with you doing that and being like that. It’s special.”

But, after a moment, Zayn caught him by the wrist, stilling them both.

“You alright?”

Zayn tugged the lapels of his jacket. “Too many clothes.”

Harry laughed. “And I should’ve said bossing me around.”

Zayn tumbled off his lap and pulled him to his feet, remembering unexpectedly Harry’s body covering his in a dark room in Brighton and how much Zayn had wanted to see him. And then watching Harry in his living room, wanting to touch him. Zayn had turned away from both at the time, and the vulnerability of giving, like the thief he was.

Such a fragile thing, wanting to please someone else. Such endless scope for disappointment and failure. How much easier just to take.

“You alright?” Harry said again. He put a hand under Zayn’s chin and made him look at him, though Zayn half pulled away, resisting.

“Yes, I just . . . want to touch you.”

Harry’s mouth curved into its wide, generous smile. “It’d be a bit weird if you didn’t, babe.”

“In your world, maybe,” Zayn muttered, running a thumb over his chiselled model’s cheekbones.

Zayn unwrapped Harry slowly like it was Christmas and somebody had given Zayn a shyly shivering glitter pirate, who made soft, uncertain purring noises beneath his mouth and fingers. Surely the best present Zayn has ever had. He lingered over the smooth expanse of Harry’s skin, taut as silk over his sleek muscles, felt the beating of his heart, the rise and fall of his breath, and the heat that gathered like a benediction beneath Zayn’s mouth. His fingers and lips became the enthralled cartographers of Harry’s flesh. His tongue traced the deep blue vein that ran like a river down his forearm, down to the branching tributaries that formed a delta at his wrist, and across the intricate paths that scored his palm. Zayn had done this in Brighton, at the time hardly knowing why, bewildered by his own response to Harry, wanting everything and nothing at the same time.

Zayn stroked the sinewy muscles of his upper arms and shoulders, tasted the deep hollows of his clavicles, the intersection of throat and collarbone, a secret, pendant-shaped plateau of skin ridged by ranges of bone. He slipped downwards, traversing the subtle planes and valleys of his body all the way to the neatly trimmed hair that formed a tantalising trail between the V of his obliques, leading from belly to perfectly groomed groin.

Zayn dropped to his knees, and in the sudden, breathless silence, he actually heard Harry swallow. On a strange, entirely inexplicable whim, Zayn turned his head and kissed the inside of his knee. He swept his hands up Harry’s thighs, the muscles flexing beneath his palms, the skin hot, and then he leaned forward and swirled his tongue over the straining head of Harry’s cock, sweeping up a drop or two of pre-cum that had gathered there.

Harry made a noise that sounded a bit like “eeep.”

Zayn glanced up, heedless, smiling, generally idiotic. Harry wore an expression of intense concentration, as though someone had asked him to do a really nasty piece of long division without the aid of calculator.

“You alright?” Zayn asked softly, in terrible Cheshire.

Harry’s hips moved infinitesimally. He opened his mouth. Said nothing. Then, “Y-yeah.”

Zayn curled a hand about his hip, over the “Niall” actually, and the other at the base of his cock. And then he took Harry in his mouth.

Harry gave a hoarse cry that he tried to turn—unconvincingly—into a cough. One of his hands fluttered down to rest very lightly in Zayn’s hair.

“Omigodbabe”—the words blurred into an incoherent whole—“I have to sit down if you’re gonna do that. I’ll fall over.”

Zayn had to stop sucking his cock to laugh.

“Bed’s behind you.”

Harry flopped down as though he didn’t have a single bone left in his body. Well. Maybe one.

Zayn crawled forwards (dignity, what’s that?), pushed his knees apart and pressed in close. Harry leaned back on his elbows, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he struggled to control his breathing.

“I’ve barely started,” Zayn said.

“I might die before.”

Zayn ran his tongue up the underside of his cock, teasing him.

“Do . . . do . . . that thing again.”

“What thing?”

Harry made a tortured sound. “What you just did. Y’know.”

“I might have forgotten.” Harry’s hips bucked, his cock thudding against Zayn’s lips, leaving a damp smear that he licked up gladly. He whined. Adorably. Zayn gripped him again, circled his cock with his tongue and lips, until he was arching off the bed, and then Zayn took pity on him, opened his mouth and slid down on him until he met his own hand.

It had been, in all honesty, a while. And Zayn’s gag reflex spasmed in protest. But it was worth it, entirely worth it, as Harry grabbed the nearest pillow and covered his face with it, muffling a blissed-out moan.

Zayn prodded him in the knee until he re-emerged. And when he was back with the programme, Zayn took his hand away, letting the last few inches of Harry’s cock sink into his mouth. Zayn spread wide his arms in an absurd Look ma, no hands gesture that made Harry laugh and then gasp and then groan.

“You’re very good at that, babe,” he mumbled. “Really good. Like professional standard.”

Zayn spat him out, trailing saliva and choking with laughter, a few tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “That is not a compliment.”

Harry sat up, aghast. “Oh no, babe! I didn’t like . . . mean . . . oh no! I didn’t mean it like that.”

“What I want to know,” Zayn said wickedly, “is where you acquired this knowledge of professional-standard oral sex.”

“No, no, I haven’t! I haven’t! I didn’t mean . . . it’s just like . . . if something is proper good, right, you sometimes think, wow, like, it’s so good, you could get paid for doing it.”

“Right. So you’re saying I should jack in writing and become a rentboy?”

“What? No!” Harry paused, his eyes narrowing, and then he grinned. “Ah. Okay, okay. You got me. You were just messing about.”

Zayn pressed his face into Harry’s thigh, his shoulders shaking as he tried to stop laughing.

Harry cleared his throat. “I say,” he said, in an outrageous accent, “suck me off at once.”

Zayn glared at him in outrage. “I do not sound like that! I’ve never said ‘I say.’”

“Get on with it, peasant.”

Zayn bit his leg, hard enough to make him gasp. And then drew his cock back into his mouth, so devoted to the act of pleasing Harry that Zayn barely flinched when the head nudged the back of his throat. He drowned in the scent and the taste of Harry, pausing in his attentions to steal a glimpse at his face. His eyes were closed, the lashes casting crescent shadows over his cheeks, his mouth slightly open. He looked enraptured. And beautiful.

Harry’s eyes flicked open, catching Zayn in an act that felt far more intimate than putting his cock in his mouth. He smiled. Stupid man. He touched Zayn gently on the shoulder, twisted a lock of his hair around his finger, and he hollowed his cheeks and fucked him with his mouth. His hand tightened convulsively in Zayn’s hair. The other groped for the pillow and dumped it back over his face. Zayn reached up and pulled it away, tossing it over his shoulder. He heard it crash into something, but he didn’t care enough to stop.

“Aw, babe,” Harry muttered, twisting about like he was trying to stop himself thrusting.

Harry let him go, covering his eyes with the heels of his hands, elbows closing over his face like a theatre curtain. But Zayn could still hear him, his frantic breath, and the strange, endearing hiccoughs of his swallowed moans.

In a while, when he was so close Zayn could practically taste it, he sat back. “Like this? Or?”

“However you want it, babe. As long as it happens.”

Zayn looked up at him, sprawled all sweaty, desperate, and blissfully undone on his Egyptian cotton sheets.

“Can I fuck you?”

“Course.”

Zayn pushed him back and crawled over him, a glide of skin, smooth as glass and water, but so hot and real, taut and trembling with desire. Harry’s arms came around him and they were kissing, messy and urgent in a collision of mouths. Zayn reached beyond him to the drawer of the bedside table, rummaging around blindly until he found a condom and some lube.

“You got some kinky stuff in there, babe,” said Harry cheerfully, tucking a pillow under himself.

“Shut up or I’ll use it on you.”

Harry hooked a leg over his hip, and Zayn pushed a slickened finger into him, followed by another, teasing the tight muscle to receptiveness. Harry’s concentration face was back, a thin little line standing out between his brows.

“I won’t hurt you.” Zayn pressed forward to drop another kiss on him.

His head was thrown back against the pillows. “You aren’t.”

Zayn wrapped his free hand round Harry’s cock and gave it a reassuring stroke. He squeezed his eyes shut, teeth biting his lower lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing . . . just probably look stupid.”

“You look amazing.”

That won a tiny smile.

“So hot. It’s um . . .” What was it he said? “Special.”

The worst of it was, Zayn meant every word. He put a hand beneath Harry’s leg and knelt between his thighs, ripping open the condom with his teeth, then rolling it on and lubing up one handed. A glance at his face confirmed he was trying not to laugh.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Such a pro, babe.”

Zayn positioned himself and breached Harry carefully, gritting his teeth against an urge to simply press forward and sheath himself inside Harry. “You really shouldn’t mock people when they’re about to stick their cock up your arse.”

Harry’s breath hitched.

Zayn stroked the underside of his thigh, inched a little further. His eyes had gone very wide. A few drops of sweat fell from Zayn’s brow and mingled with the moisture that already glittered on Harry’s torso. Zayn had meant to torment him, just a little. Make him work for it. Beg Zayn for it, perhaps. Or just moan in helpless abandon for Zayn to take him. But then he glanced down and the sight of Harry’s body spread around him utterly undid him. Zayn gasped out his name, and a scattering of obscenities, and thrust himself into him, deep, then deeper, until their bodies met. A delirious rainbow of light unravelled behind his eyes, a herald of utter and heedless ecstasy.

Zayn was afraid he might have hurt Harry with his lack of control, but Harry was stretched out beneath him, his head thrown back again to show the straining muscles of his neck, and the fingers of one hand were clinging to the intricate iron curlicues of the bedstead. Exquisite.

It was Zayn’s last coherent thought.

All that was left was the tight heat of his body, his name to be whispered like a prayer, the taste of his mouth, the heavy scents of skin and sex and both of them together, the way Harry’s fingers tightened around the metal, his harsh gasps and broken cries, Zayn’s hand on Harry’s cock, moving in the same rough rhythm as his thrusts. The impossible ouroboros of want and wanting, the twin pleasures of giving and taking, swirled together as richly as oils upon a canvas.

Zayn forced his eyes open, fought his body’s response and his instinct for selfishness. It was enough. A fingerhold on the precipice of desire, to stop him tumbling headlong into his own private rapture. A hard thrust, a twist of his hand on Harry’s cock, and the incantation of his name was all it finally took, his body shuddering under Zayn’s, his pleasure spilling over his fingers and onto his belly. Zayn followed him mere moments later, collapsing into his waiting arms as he came in an intense, wrenching rush. Endless moments of nothing but joy and glittering pieces of madness. And, through the broken mirrors of bliss-closed eyes, glimpses of happiness in refracted rainbows. Zayn clung to Harry, shattered, thoughtless, mindless, pleasure-wracked, safe.

Zayn came back to himself, to his shaking, panting, sweating, aching body, and found it bearable. He peeled myself off Harry, dispensed with the condom, and went for a towel on unsteady legs. Afterwards they lay together, and Zayn kissed the faint freckles that scattered his shoulders in defiance of his spray tan.

“You’re so good at that, babe,” Harry said sleepily. “Specially with your mouth. Like . . . wow.”

 Zayn trailed his fingers over the “Niall”. Take that, bitch.

“I’ll put it on my CV,” Zayn murmured. “Excellent cocksucker.”

“But I should really check it for you properly, babe. As a favour or whatever.”

“How noble you are.”

“I’m very noble, me. Aw, y’know what?”

“Oh god, what?”

“We should get the wavey things what the judges have on Strictly.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Y’know, the wavey things with the scores on them. Sev-VEN.”

“I do not watch Strictly Come Dancing.”

“God, babe, you don’t watch MasterChef, you don’t watch Strictly, no wonder you’re bipolar depressed.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Zayn was silent a moment. “Wait a minute. Did you just say you would rate my blowjob as a seven? Get the fuck out of my bed.”

Harry laughed and didn’t move.

 

              

 

Zayn woke in a panic, plastered to Harry’s velvet-warm back, one arm draped across him, the other crooked awkwardly under the pillow, completely numb. He scrambled into a sitting position and pulled his knees up to his chest, trying to calm his body’s anxieties and his mind’s chaos. But it was no use. His heart raced. His thoughts whirled.

Harry slept on.

At least until Zayn prodded him awake.

“Harry. Harry.”

He rolled over, tousled and lovely, blinking dazedly in the half-light. “What’s wrong, babe?”

Zayn stared at him, for a moment utterly speechless at the magnitude of everything. “I’m going to make you so unhappy,” he blurted out.

“What? When? Can’t you like do it in the morning?”

“See,” Zayn said, somewhat hysterically. “I’ve already started. I’m waking you up in the middle of the night.”

“It’s okay,” Harry mumbled, also sitting up. “I haven’t got anything planned for tomorrow. Next shoot is next week, I think.”

“I can’t do this.” Zayn wrapped his arms tightly around his knees and huddled at the top of the bed. “I can’t be with someone. I ruin everything.”

“But I like being with you, babe. You’re not gonna ruin anything.”

“You don’t understand.” Harry touched his arm and Zayn shook him off. “I know Stephen Fry has you up to speed, but I’m not charmingly quirky. I’m clinically insane. I’ve been in hospital. Involuntarily. Because I was too nuts to know I was nuts.”

“We’ve all got flaws, babe.”

Zayn glared at him. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“Well, you just said you were mental.”

“Harry.”

“Babe.”

Zayn folded his hands across the tops of his knees and pressed his face into them. “Please don’t laugh at me.”

“No,” Harry said, so gently it made Zayn want to weep.

“You see,” Zayn mumbled. “This is what I’m like. Louis was right about me; everything he said was true. You’ll end up hating me like he does. I don’t want to do that to you.”

“So, you don’t have to.”

“I might not have a choice. And if you say we always have a choice, I’ll kill you with a pillow.”

There was a long silence. Zayn sensed, rather than saw, Harry moving in the gloom. His smooth, naked shoulder brushed lightly against Zayn’s, sending a flare of response through the twisted labyrinth of his scars. Zayn flinched. Harry kept making him feel things in ruined places.

“Look,” Harry whispered. “I’m not clever like you, but I think it’s going to be alright. I’m with you because I like being with you and that’s . . . y’know . . . alright. And when it ain’t ahwight . . . then I won’t be with you. I’m not gonna let you treat me bad, babe.”

“Oh great, so you’re just going to walk out on the mentally ill guy when the going gets tough?”

“Babe, I’m confused. Are you sad cos you think I’m going to be with you or sad because you think I’m not?”

“I don’t know.” All his doubts and all his fears were snarled up into a matted ball like hair fished out of the bathroom sink, and Zayn couldn’t tell which were real and which were baseless, how much he was protecting himself, or if he was—in his twisted, useless way—trying to protect Harry. Some distant dead end in Zayn’s mind was just about capable of recognising that he did not want a martyr to his depression, but he couldn’t link his thoughts into a path that would take him there. He was a rat in the maze of his own thinking, and all the floors were electric, and all the exits were locked. “I don’t know.”

“We have hardly even started,” said Harry soothingly.

“But what if I go mad again? What if I get depressed?”

Harry shrugged. “You could get hit by a bus or something tomorrow.”

“Thanks, that’s really consoling.”

“I’m just saying.”

Zayn took in a deep, slow breath, willing himself to calm, to honesty, to courage. In short, all the things he didn’t have. If Harry left now, it would be Zayn’s choice. If he left later, it would be his own, and Zayn would be helpless. And hurt. “Harry, I tried to kill myself. Louis left me in the middle of a major depression, and I tried to kill myself.” Harry was silent, so he went on. “He felt guilty and came back to apologise and found me.”

“Must’ve been hard for both of you.”

“Yes, death is so very ugly. They don’t tell you that. But it is.”

Zayn actually remembered little. He had already been sinking, sunk. And Louis’ departure had been inevitable. Even welcomed, because he’d taken with him the last reason to keep struggling. Finally, the freedom to do something for himself, only for himself. Zayn’s last and greatest gift: he could make it stop. He had lacked the foresight for pills. Or the courage to leap in front of a train or off a building. But, clutching a knife from the kitchen, Zayn had felt—for the briefest of brief moments—a shining, perfect euphoria. Lost, of course, in the undignified mess that followed.

Zayn searched Harry’s eyes for horror and condemnation, and found none. But then, he’d seen Harry’s portfolio. He was a model, the master of his face.

“That may well be you someday,” Zayn said.

Harry nodded slowly. “I guess I’ll have to see about it then.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? How can you care for me when I’ve always got one foot out the door?”

“I dunno. Look, babe, I know you think I’m a bit shallow and I probably am to be honest with you, but I don’t think it’s going to be easy, and I don’t think it’s always gonna be alright. But even if it isn’t always alright, that’s alright as well, cos sometimes things just aren’t, and that’s how they are. And I definitely think there isn’t any point worrying about stuff that might never happen.”

“Oh, God,” Zayn groaned. “Yoda’s back.”

“Yeah.” Harry’s fingers whispered against the side of his face in the dark until Zayn lifted his head. Harry tugged him into a kiss. The angle was awkward and his mouth tasted of sleep but Zayn didn’t care. He could have fallen into it, a sailor abandoning himself to the waves, just like in Brighton, but Harry wasn’t a stranger anymore. Zayn couldn’t use him like that again, not when his kisses were full of promises he couldn’t keep. Not with Zayn. He pulled away on a sigh of sheer physical need.

“I’m a terrible risk to take with your happiness.”

“I dunno,” Harry said. “I mean, sadness is just a thing what happens. And sometimes people just have to go, you know.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry things were so bad, babe. But there isn’t any point wishing you were different, cos then you wouldn’t be you.”

“No,” Zayn whispered. “I’d be better. I wish I’d met you before it all went wrong.”

“I don’t think you would’ve liked me back then.”

“Do you really believe I have to be the ruin of myself to like you?”

“No. I just think it’s now that matters. Anyway,” he added, before Zayn could respond to that piece of Hallmark wisdom with the contempt it deserved, “you gonna show me or what?”

“Show you what?”

Harry’s upper arm nudged against Zayn’s. “What you did.”

There was a long silence. Zayn was glaring at Harry, but he probably couldn’t see it. Zayn wondered if this was the instinctive, prurient curiosity that made people stare at car crashes. But, perhaps, just perhaps, Zayn wanted to believe him. That, even if it wasn’t all right, it would be all right. (What did that even mean? Was he some kind of idiot savant? Or just a man who genuinely didn’t fear the pain of liking me?) But maybe the stark truth, written on my skin, would change his mind.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine.”

Zayn uncoiled himself, leaned over, and flicked on the bedside lamp. Harry winced in the dazzle, blinking and rubbing his eyes like a child in a picture book.

Zayn thrust out his arms, hands turned palm up, so Harry could see the long, white fishbone of scar and stitching that ran from his right wrist almost to the elbow, and its shorter, jagged sibling on the left. “Ugly enough for you? Or do you want the rest as well?”

Harry took Zayn’s hands in his, holding him outstretched. Shudderingly exposed. “I don’t think it’s ugly. It’s just there.”

“Well, I hate that it’s there.”

“Why, babe?”

“Well, not even managing to kill yourself properly is a bit of competence nadir, don’t you think?”

“I dunno, I reckon it’s pretty hard. I mean, being alive is like a . . . . like blinking, you know, just something you do without having to think about it.”

Zayn shook his head. “For most people, perhaps. For me it’s a daily commitment I sometimes don’t feel like making. But I hate that I tried. And I hate that I failed. This doesn’t represent some beautiful moment in which I chose life. It’s a fuckup, pure and simple. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be here.”

Harry’s eyes held his. In the circle of light from the lamp, they were greenish-blue, like looking at the sky when you’re swimming underwater. “That true, babe?”

Zayn opened his mouth to answer, but he couldn’t meet all that sincerity, all that hope and generosity, with a lie that made things simple for him. “Sometimes,” he said, finally. “But not always. It would have been so much easier, but then—” he swallowed. “—I suppose I would have lost some moments too.”

It was strange—perhaps terrible—but somehow Zayn found it easier to talk about wanting to die than wanting to live.

“They’re not the moments I ever thought I’d want,” Zayn went on. “Sometimes I think they’re very small. Like the crunch of autumn leaves. And writing, maybe. And you, Harry.”

He leaned over and kissed, not the scars, but the heel of Zayn’s hand, as he had once, twice now, kissed him. “Aww, babe. I think you’re amazing.”

There was another long silence.

And then his fingers touched Zayn’s upper arms, the meaningless non-pattern of scars and slashes. “What about this?”

“That’s just old lunacy, from my first manic episode. I can’t even remember doing it. They told me later that I thought there were lost words trapped in my skin and I was releasing them back into the world. Like a flock of phoenix.” Zayn tried to laugh, but nothing came out.

Harry’s fingertips circled and swooped, trailing a feathery warmth across Zayn’s skin, lighting up the lines on the madman’s Etch A Sketch Zayn had made of his body. Scars or not, it felt the same. “What were the words?”

“I don’t know. I can’t read them. It’s all senseless. It always was.”

Harry leaned in, and Zayn shivered self-consciously beneath such close regard. “Trying to crack the da Vinci code?” he asked.

Harry laughed, looked up, and kissed Zayn with such swift cunning he had no hope of evading it. “You’re alright, babe.”

Oh, how Zayn wished it were true. Instead he wound himself round him like poison ivy and clung. “Barthes said language is a skin. I’m sure he never meant it quite this literally.”

“Who’s Barfs?”

“Barthes. French literary critic. Gay. Perhaps overly fond of his mother. Prone to nervous breakdowns.”

“You know such a lot of things, babes.”

Zayn shrugged. “He used to be one of my heroes.”

“You went off him? That’s a bit harsh.”

“He’s dead.” Safe in the gloom, Zayn stretched up and put his lips shyly to the edge of Harry’s jaw. “He won’t mind.”

“But why?”

“He was hit by a laundry truck.”

“Yeah, har-har. I meant why’d you go off him, you donut.”

For a moment, Zayn was silent, his head tucked against Harry’s shoulder, while Zayn listened to the sounds of his body, magnified by the night. He could almost imagine he heard the brush of one eyelash against another, the rush of blood through veins and arteries, the cells of Harry’s body dying, dividing, and multiplying, like eggshells cracking. Finally Zayn said, “Unhappy is the man who has need of heroes.”

“I’m being funny, babe, but now you’re just being clever in a way that means you don’t have to answer the question.”

Zayn kissed Harry under the ear. “I’m sorry, Harry. I don’t know what I like anymore. I don’t know if what I think is what I think, if what I feel is what I feel, if any of it at all is me. If there is a me that isn’t just a reflection of or a response to . . . mental illness.”

“Course there is, babe.”

“How will I know?”

“Cos you will. You’ll know when something’s real.”

Zayn gave a laugh so harsh it hurt his throat. “I don’t, though. That’s the fucking problem. What part of ‘insane’ did you miss?”

The next thing Zayn knew he was on his back, Harry stretched on top of him, his hips cradled by Zayn’s hips, his legs pushing Zayn’s apart.

“I reckon you’ll figure it out.”

Harry caught his unconvincingly protesting hands and bore them down against the pillows. His mouth nipped its way up Zayn’s neck and then settled over his. And he held Zayn and kissed him until there was nothing else.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Zayn’s phone was beeping insistently and he was just as insistently ignoring it. Eventually, Harry untangled himself and went to retrieve it.

“I’m starting to think you’ve got a secret lover, babe.”

He tossed Zayn his phone. He had accrued an extensive collection of emails and text messages. “Oh fuck. Oh, wanking fuck. I’m meant to be in Cambridge. There’s a wedding tomorrow and a rehearsal dinner tonight.” He rolled himself into sheets that smelled of both of them, pulled a pillow over my head, and whinged—in a rather muffled manner—about not wanting to go.

Unlike most of his social engagements, Zayn hadn’t made his usual internal commitment to avoid Liam and Sophia’s wedding. There were some acts too low even for Zayn. But somehow the reality of it had slipped away from him, along with everything but Harry, and he was left without resources.

Harry sat down on the edge of the bed and patted lightly at Zayn’s shoulder. “Better get moving, babe.”

“I don’t want to. I feel panicky just thinking about it. It’ll be awful. What if something goes wrong?”

He tugged at Zayn’s cocoon. “It’s just you being anxious or whatever. It’s gonna be fine.”

“Just anxious?” Zayn repeated, as furiously as he could from beneath a pillow. “Just anxious! Fuck you. That’s like saying, it’s just a broken leg, start climbing that mountain.”

“Sorry,” Harry said with a distinct lack of repentance. “I just don’t think you should miss something that’s important to your mates.”

“I’ve spent the last however many years letting my friends down. Believe me, they’ll cope.”

“Aww, that’s sad.”

Zayn snarled at him.

“Sorry.” A pause, and then, “You haven’t let me down, babe.”

“Give me time.”

Harry slowly began to peel away the sheets, and Zayn slowly stopped fighting him.

“But you did modeling and everything.” He pulled off the pillow and put it back in its usual place. “What do you normally do when you have to do something that you feel all anxious about?”

“I don’t do it.”

“That’s not true.”

Zayn sat up, sighing. “It’s mostly true. I suppose I could take some diazepam, but I hate it. It makes me feel sub-human. I think Hamlet must have been on it.”

“Don’t think they had that back in history, babe.”

“‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt.’ It’s exactly like that. And it’s addictive, so if I’m not careful, I’ll end up a clinically anxious, bipolar depressive with a drug problem.” Zayn waved a finger at Harry. “Oh, oh, and let’s not forget its many many side effects. One of which is . . . depression.”

Harry made a snuffling sound and hastily clapped a hand over his mouth.

“It’s fine, laugh it up. It’s funny, it’s fucking ridiculous.”

“But there isn’t anything else?”

“Yes, Harry,” Zayn said with sharp-edged patience. “I really want to medicate my medication with medication.”

“Suppose not,” he said. “I remember thinking you had a lot of pills the first time I stayed over.”

 Zayn gaped at him. “Wait, you knew all along?”

“I knew you had something going on, but I wouldn’t pry, babe. I thought you’d tell me when you wanted.”

“And you still slept with me? Wanted to be with me?”

Harry shrugged. “Course.”

“You’re a strange man, Harry Styles.”

“Takes one to know one, babe.”

He made Zayn smile. Just a little. And, in return, what could he give except ugly truths? “I don’t want to take more pills than I have to. It’s taken years to get this close to stable.”

And, for the most part, it worked. Yes, depression dogged his footsteps and the promise of hypomania glittered sometimes on the horizon, but Zayn hadn’t been manic for a long time. He didn’t know whether it was the ECT, the medication, the counseling, or the very fact of being appropriately diagnosed, but it wasn’t something he dared to question, in case he broke the spell. Zayn wouldn’t have called himself a superstitious man, but when it came to the intricacies of his biochemistry, the complexities of his illness, he was as helpless as a frightened child who prayed to a god called science.

“They’ve tried to fix the anxiety,” Zayn said, “but if you take this, you have to take that or stop taking the other, and the whole bloody awful cycle begins again. They did find something that helped a bit. But I stopped taking it.”

“Yeah?

“Yes. The side effects . . . I . . . got fat, okay? And I know it’s shallow, I know it’s irresponsible, Louis’ told me a thousand times, but, honestly, I’d rather be anxious than fat.”

“I’m with you, babes.” Harry sounded suddenly about as serious as Zayn had ever heard him. “Also, right, if you think about it, it’s stupid to have medication that’s supposed to be for stopping people being depressed that also makes them fat. Cos that’d be well depressing.”

Zayn shook his head. What manner of idiocy would lead someone to put their vanity above their mental health? And what manner of idiot would support such a choice? But he couldn’t help liking that Harry did. Accidental or not, it was the first flicker of understanding he’d ever received that he had the same right to be just as shallow and stupid as everyone else. That Zayn did not have to be grateful to simply roll from day to day as a bloated, mindless zombie.

“Then,” Zayn said, “we’re both shallow and deserve each other.”

“No, no, it’s not about what you look like, it’s about being happy with how you look. And if you aren’t happy, then you aren’t gonna look good anyway.”

“Deep.”

Harry gave him a look Zayn couldn’t quite read, frowning a little. “I know what I’m talking about, okay? I was a bit of a chubber when I was growing up. What with being gay as well, it wasn’t a major laugh.”

Truthfully, Zayn couldn’t imagine Harry as ever being less than beautiful.

“And don’t think,” he added, in a more playful tone, “this means I’m gonna let you get away with not going to your mate’s thing.”

Zayn gave a hollow groan. “But I could be consoling you for your minor childhood wounds. Healing you with my sweet, sweet loving.”

“Shut up. And stop . . . like . . . stalling. Cos getting married is important.”

“Is there any way I could convince you it’s an outdated, heteronormative construct that has no place in a secular society?”

“I think it’s totally romantic.”

“Oh, dear God.” Zayn dived back under the covers.

“Come on, babe,” he said, tugging on a toe Zayn had accidentally left out in the cold. “It’ll be alright. Want me to go with you or something?”

Zayn stuck his head out. “Would you?”

“Course. I love weddings. I’d get to eat cake and meet all your mates.”

Oh, fuck, Zayn hadn’t thought of that. Spending hours, and days fucking and laughing with Harry in the privacy of his own home was one thing. Introducing Harry to all his Oxbridge friends as his . . . what? boyfriend? was quite another. Nobody would understand. And Zayn couldn’t blame them—he hardly understood himself. People would smile, of course, but he would see the question behind the smile: has Zayn finally completely lost it, has his self-esteem plummeted to such depths that he’s trawling Cheshire for totty? And, anyway, surely it wouldn’t be fair on Harry, having him stand around, being charmingly bewildered, while everyone talked over his head and laughed and speculated behind his back.

Laughed and speculated behind Zayn back.

“Actually,” he said hastily, “it probably wouldn’t work out. You know what weddings are like. This has been meticulously planned for the last twelve centuries. Wars have been fought. If I showed up with an unplanned guest, I think it might cause the end of the world.”

“It’ll be fine, babe. I bet you anything there’s like a dead uncle or somebody without their partner or something.”

“I don’t think we should risk it.”

“Well, call and ask. And if they’re like no, I can send you off with good thoughts and good vibes and everything and go back home for a bit. Cos my mum probably thinks you’ve got me tied up in the basement.”

“Note to self: move house, get basement.”

Harry laughed. “You don’t have to tie me up, babe. I’m like a volunteer.”

“But if I had a basement, you’d look good tied up in it.”

“You say the sweetest things. Now get on with ringing your mate.”

“Uh . . .” Zayn had been so distracted by the basement that he couldn’t think of a single plausible excuse for why he didn’t want Harry to come with him to the wedding. The truth—“I don’t want my friends to think less of me than they do already, which they inevitably would if they saw me with you”—would have done the trick, of course, but came with the unfortunate side effect that Zayn probably wouldn’t be tying Harry to anything ever.

He hadn’t entirely been lying about the wedding being an event from hell, so calling Sophia seemed like it might be a sensible gamble. She would probably tell Zayn that it wasn’t possible to accommodate a random gentleman she’d never met before on the happiest day of her life, which would liberate me to go back to bed with the random gentleman in question.

Sophia picked up after a couple of rings, greeting me with a slightly wary edge to her voice Zayn had never heard before. He put it down to general wedding-related stress.

“Um, yes, hi. Sophia . . . I kind of wanted to . . . the thing is . . .”

Zayn’s flow of awkward was interrupted by the buzz of voices over the line, and he lost track of his own stammering. Sophia said something he couldn’t make out, and things quieted down a bit. Then she spoke into the phone again. “Sorry, what was that?”

Zayn tried again. “I’m sort of . . . there’s a . . . I know it’s really short notice, but . . .”

There was another interruption. “Just a minute,” said Sophia, and for a moment Zayn thought she meant him, but then she was back. “What’s the matter, Zayn?”

Fuck. Shit. Wank. “Oh, um. Nothing’s the matter. I just . . . there’s a guy . . . I know the answer is probably no, but can I bring him to—”

“God, yes!” She sounded so incredibly thrilled that it was only then that Zayn realized she’d been expecting him to pull out. Abandon her on her wedding day. As he had wanted to do less than five minutes ago. And probably would have done, had it not been for Harry.

There was no denying it. No hiding it. He was a terrible, terrible person. Selfish. Cowardly. Worthless. His stomach churned, as though he was trying to flinch away from himself.

“Are you sure?” he said. “I mean, what about the seating plans? Won’t it throw everything off? I mean, it’s okay if—”

“Not at all. It’s absolutely no problem. The seating plan is already buggered beyond belief, so he can come to the dinner tonight as well. One of Liam’s great-uncles passed away a couple of weeks ago. And Greg and Laura are getting divorced so they both decided not to come in case they met without a lawyer present. Although since Liam knows about eighty lawyers, I don’t know what they were worried about.”

“Right,” Zayn said dazedly.

“I can’t wait to meet your man. But now I have to go before this turns into a blood bath. See you later, and thank you, thank you, thank you, mwah, darling.”

“Right,” he said again. He looked into Harry’s wide, hopeful eyes. “You can come.”

Harry grinned. “We are gonna give it large, babe. I need your help.” He bounced, naked, off the bed, and started scrabbling around on the floor, emerging a few seconds later like an excitable retriever. “Do you think these or these?”

The choice in question seemed to be silver-sequined Ugg boots or silver-sequined Converses.

“I honestly have no mechanism for forming an opinion,” Zayn said, after a moment.

“Think it better be these.” He waved the Converses. “Sparkle but subtle.”

“I think subtle has long since left the building.”

There was nothing for it. Zayn had to get dressed. Thankfully it wasn’t too much of a challenge since Louis once unkindly suggested that he always looked like I was going to a wedding, anyway.

“Look at you, babes.” Harry crept up behind him and squeezed. He was wearing a jacket that looked as though it was made from the feathers of a bird of paradise—which, Zayn supposed, passed for formal wear in his world.

“Let me guess,” Zayn said, “I look like I work in parliament.”

“Oh, my God, babe, look at all these ties.” Peering into his wardrobe, Harry gave a gasp and pulled out a silver twill Stefano Ricci tie, set with Swarovski crystals. Zayn had bought it because he was so fucking depressed he would have bought anything. “Wear this one.”

Zayn cringed. “With a navy suit, or indeed ever, absolutely not.”

“But it’s so bling, babe. It goes with my shoes.”

“That tie says one of two things. It either says, ‘I’m a wanker,’ or ‘I’m mentally ill,’ and, though I am both, I have no wish to broadcast it.”

Somehow, between expressing my determination not to wear the tie and leaving the house, Zayn ended up wearing the tie.

 

              

 

“I’ve never been to Cambridge.” Harry bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet as they dropped their bags off in the room Sophia had booked for Zayn at her old college. “It’s nice.”

“Bah. It’s just like a smaller version of Oxford, where they cheat at Tiddlywinks and punt from the wrong end.”

“You gonna show me around?”

“No, we’re going to stay here and fuck—I think we have time before dinner if we’re quick about it.”

“You’re so romantic, babe.”

They fell onto the single bed with such abandon that it went crashing into the wall, knocking a chunk out of the plasterwork. From the arched, wisteria-woven windows came a sudden shaft of sunlight, warmed gold by the surrounding sandstone, in which the dancing dust motes glittered like stars.

              

 

The rehearsal dinner was being held in the fourteenth-century Old Hall—though Zayn was unsure why they needed to practice eating and having awkward conversation.

“Are we like having dinner in a church?” whispered Harry, awestruck.

“It’s just a college dining hall.”

“What’s with the stained glass?”

“Most likely an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century addition.”

Harry gave him a look. “I just think it’s proper weird.”

At that point, they got swept along into the rest of the milling guests, escaping only from the hurricane of introductions, greetings, handshakes, and meaningless civilities when they finally washed up in front of Liam and Sophia and the rest of the wedding party.

Sophia threw herself into his arms. “Zayn, you came. I’m so happy!”

“Um, yes. And I brought, um, Harry.”

Sophia beamed at him. “Thank you for coming to the wedding of a total stranger. I hope it isn’t completely awful.”

“No way. I love a wedding. I think it’s proper nice, taking an oath to be with someone for your whole life. I reckon most people wanna get done with me after five minutes.”

“That’s a blatant lie,” said Sophia staunchly. “You’re lovely.”

Harry gleamed under his tan, blushing. “Awww, thanks. Did you come ’ere? Like Cambridge?”

“Yes, this is my old college.”

“You must be really clever.”

“I’m really good at bullshitting.” She grinned. “Why do you think I’m an agent?”

“What? Like a spy?”

“Err, no. A literary agent?”

“Oh, right. Ha-ha.” Harry shuffled his feet.

Sophia looked grave. “Of course, I have to say that, because otherwise I’d have to kill you.”

Harry laughed, and a vague, unexpected warmth swept over Zayn. Something he hadn’t felt for a long time, something almost like pride, in Sophia, in Harry, and a little bit for himself. It seemed, just then, an impossible kindness that two such people could find something worth liking in all his sharp and scattered pieces. He turned into Harry’s shoulder and smothered a smile there.

One of Harry’s arms slid round him as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “This place is nice for a wedding.” He nodded approvingly. “Classy. But didn’t you find it a bit like depressing when you were here, cos everything is so old and like . . . I dunno . . . serious?”

“God, yes. We’re only here because there was no fucking way I was getting married in Oxford, and Buckingham Palace wasn’t available, so what can you do?”

Harry laughed. “I hope you’re happy together.”

Sophia gestured to Liam, who was caught up in what looked like a tense, familial negotiation. “Have you seen the guy I’m marrying? If I can’t be happy with him, what chance is there?”

Harry followed her pointing finger. “He’s quality. Hunred percent,” he agreed.

“I know, right. I mean the arse alone . . .”

“Totally.”

“Are you two quite finished?” Zayn said. “Or maybe you want to marry each other? I suppose I’ll be able to bring myself to console Liam. Taking one for the team.”

Grinning, Harry snuggled him further into the crook of his arm. “He’s getting jell.”

“There, there, Zayn.” Sophia smirked. “Your arse is quality, too.”

He was about to make a severe retort when Liam turned around, and the whole cycle of introductions had to start again.

“Well, bless my heart,” exclaimed another voice, as incongruous within Cambridge’s oak-panelled walls as Harry’s. “What a perfectly charming homosexual.”

Zayn’s mouth fell open. Beside him, Harry’s did the same. Liam had never told Zayn his mother was Scarlett O’Hara.

Even wearing a single string of pearls and a black dress of such breathtaking simplicity it would have made Holly Golightly seem crass, she looked as though there ought to have been at least six gentlemen callers dead at her feet. She must have been at least fifty, but time had not dared to touch her. Liam’s beauty was her beauty. His bone structure a bolder, more angular version of hers. His hair, the same precise shade of impossible, gleaming raven. At her side, he was making frantic, windmilling “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” gestures with his hands.

“Come here, you darlin’ darlin’ thing,” she said, crooking a finger at Zayn’s date.

Harry looked nervously over his shoulder, on the off chance she was referring to some other darlin’ darlin’ thing. And then, with the air of a man going to his execution, allowed her to claim his arm.

She smiled at him like a firing squad readying arms. “I have always believed a gentleman needs a lick of the devil in him.”

Zayn glanced at Liam’s father, who was wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and had a face like a three-day-old tea bag. At which point, taking advantage of his split-second distraction, Liam’s mother stole Harry, leaving Zayn standing there, jilted like Suellen.

“I’m so sorry,” said Liam. “She’s actually the worst person in the world.”

Across the room, Zayn caught sight of Harry, being whirled off through the guests. “I think she’s mental!” he mouthed urgently and without subtlety.

Zayn hid a smile and went to get a drink.

And another.

And another.

Anything to keep him afloat in this sea.

Somehow he ended up on the edge of a group of people he vaguely recognised from university. The conversation—politics, literature, the state of the economy, what had happened to so-and-so—washed over him. Bored. Zayn was bored.

“Zayn Malik,” drawled a voice that sounded gratingly posh to my ears and yet seemed familiar, “we must stop meeting like this.”

Zayn gazed into a face he might once have found attractive. Brown eyes, brown hair, sharp, clever features, a thin blade of a mouth, whimsical and cruel.

“Quite,” Zayn said. Who the fuck was he?

“Eric,” he said, a smile concealing what was clearly irritation. “Eric Hastings.”

Nope. Not a clue. “Of course.”

“We met in Brighton.” He smiled again. “We went to the same college.”

Oh, that Eric. Right. The one Zayn hadn’t pulled at the stag party.

“You know, after you left with that—” He waved a hand as if Harry defied mere description. “—I remembered how I knew you.”

“You did?” A vague sense of unease uncoiled like a serpent. It was just anxiety. Paranoia. Relax. Breathe.

“Yah, you were the one who had the complete psychotic break, right?”

Suddenly Zayn was the centre of a circle of curious, glistening eyes. Somebody could have mentioned Robbie Williams, but there was nothing, just a hungry silence. He felt a shamed flush sear my cheeks. His head spun. His mouth filled up with the taste of bile.

“Yes,” Zayn said, with broken-glass calm. “Yes, that was me.”

“Oh, you’re that fellow.” A different voice. “You poor bastard. Are you all right now?”

Zayn had had this nightmare before, but he’d always woken up.

He smoothed his cuffs. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

Another voice? The same? It didn’t matter. “What was it like?”

He was still smoothing his cuffs, and even Zayn could see how it looked, a tic turned habit turned compulsion. Stop smoothing your cuffs. But he couldn’t, he just couldn’t. He couldn’t even look at them. “What do you mean, what was it like?”

“Did they lock you up?”

“Was it like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?”

“How did you get out?”

Breathe, Zayn, breathe. “I dug a tunnel into the sewer system from beneath a poster of Rita Hayworth.”

There was a long silence as everyone tried to work out if the clinically insane were allowed to be sarcastic. It might have worked, too—Zayn could have deflected them, and held them at bay instead of the other way round—but his breathing was too shallow, his voice too unsteady. It wasn’t a joke anymore, it was another piece of derangement. He might as well have been standing there in white pyjamas.

(Another myth. They let you wear whatever you want, and you still dress like crap because nobody cares and neither do you.)

Zayn swallowed. “I got better, so they let me out.”

“Can they do that?” Eric.

It took everything he had, but Zayn risked a glance at him. Just then, he was not too proud to plead. Don’t do this to me. He had liked Zayn once. But his face reflected only the blank, uncomprehending confidence of the wholly unhurt, and a touch of private malice. It seemed that being slighted by a lunatic was not something easily forgiven.

“I thought,” Eric said, “once you were in the system, it was impossible to get out again. I read a book by this American journalist who pretended to be batshit so he could expose what it’s really like for mental patients but, of course, once he was admitted, he couldn’t prove he wasn’t meant to be there.”

Murmurs rising like the sea to engulf Zayn.

“I mean, I can kind of see why. If an insane person tells you they’re sane, how are you supposed to tell it’s not further evidence of their insanity? And that would be really dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

Zayn felt the weight of all those expectant stares.

“We do walk amongst you,” he said, at last.

Pity. Zayn was drowning in pity, as slick as oil.

He felt sick. Small and sick and utterly, utterly lost. He wanted— he needed—

Somebody to save him. But how could you be rescued from yourself?

Eric’s voice pricked his skin like a thousand tiny needles. “And the orange chap in the feathers is your boyfriend now?”

Again, that stomach-churning surge of interest from the others. Zayn could see what they saw: the madman and his fool. And now they would have them caper. Their scrutiny had been unpleasant enough when it touched upon his past, but now their eyes were burrowing into his present. A better man would have owned his truths. But, at the moment, the vulnerability of mere madness seemed nothing to the vulnerability of showing that he cared.

Zayn managed to meet the stares and gave what he hoped was an insouciant smile. “I wouldn’t go that far. He’s more of a-a fuckee, really.”

“A fuckee? Is that like a fuck buddy?”

“Yes, like a fuck buddy, but without the tiresome buddy requirement.”

Someone chuckled. Finally, it wasn’t pity. “So, sort of the late-night drive-through of sex. For when you get that craving for something cheap and filthy, like a Big Mac.”

“Precisely,” Zayn said. “None of the hassle of a relationship and cheaper than a whore. And, now I think about it, cheaper than a Big Mac too.”

He waited for the laugh that never came.

Nobody was looking at him, except Eric. He put a hand to his lips, as if to conceal whatever lay beneath it. Zayn thought, perhaps, a smile.

And then, he knew. He knew what he had done.

In that endless, awful second, Zayn would have gladly destroyed the world, himself, and everyone in it, to avoid turning round. He’d plumbed the depths of his own shame and disappointment so many times it barely mattered anymore, but how could he face Harry? Knowing he had finally seen the truth of Zayn?

Harry was standing behind him. Of course he was. His eyes had that shiny look of someone on the brink of tears. His mouth opened and closed a few times, before he said finally, “Mate, that’s . . . that’s bang out of order.” His voice broke on the final word. “I thought you liked me.”

And then he turned and walked away.

Everyone was staring at Zayn. He should have been running after Harry, apologising, throwing himself at his feet, even, but he was pinned by eyes, like a moth in a glass case. Besides, there was little value in the remorse of a creature like him. Zayn was sorry, of course he was sorry, but it was the regret of the thief who gets caught, not the regret of the truly penitent. The scene was already replaying in his head, and he could not imagine a version of events in which he did not sacrifice Harry to save himself a little humiliation. Zayn was too weak, too selfish, and he simply did not deserve to apologise to Harry.

“Man, that was cold,” whispered someone, in a voice that hovered on the brink of awe.

 “Ouch,” said Eric. Spite glinted in his eyes. “Bit of a mismatch in expectations there, I fear.”

Zayn shrugged. “Plenty of cocks in the sea. Anybody got a cigarette?”

Blindly, Zayn took the whole packet and the box of matches from Eric and went into the quad. His hands were shaking so much that he could barely hold the flame to the tip of the first cigarette. But, finally, he lit up.

He smoked cigarette after cigarette, littering the flagstones at his feet with fag ends and burnt out matches, breathing smoky poison into the still night air. His eyes stung, moisture gathering at the corners. It must have been the cold. Or the cigarette ash.

“I don’t understand.” Louis stepped through the doorway. “Why would you go to all that trouble for him, and then do that?”

Zayn gave a startled, sobbing hiccough, and dropped his last cigarette. He cursed, extinguished it with his foot, and tried surreptitiously to dash away his tears with the heel of a hand. He’d meant it when he’d told Louis that he never wanted to see him again, but right now Zayn couldn’t find the energy to argue about it. In some strange way, it was almost nice to see him. At least Zayn wasn’t alone in the dark, with nothing but an empty packet of cigarettes. “I don’t know either.”

“You should go after him.”

Zayn scraped out a mirthless laugh. “I don’t know where he is and this isn’t a fucking romcom. I’m not going to catch up with him just as he’s getting onto a plane, kiss him in front of a crowd of applauding strangers, and live happily ever after. Besides, what am I going to say to him? I’m just a manic depressive standing in front of a moron, asking him to love me?”

“Well, no,” said Louis, “but you could say you’re sorry for being a prick.”

“Oh, fuck off, Jiminy Cricket.”

He sat down on the step, hands folded loosely between his knees and, after a moment, Zayn crumpled down next to him. This felt almost like being back at university except for the gulf of time that stood between the eighteen-year-old Zayn used to be and what was left of him. Though perhaps, for Louis, nothing had changed at all. He was still longing for Liam and stuck looking after Zayn.

“I thought a lot about what you said,” Louis said finally. “You were right about all of it. But I wasn’t lying when I said I went out with you because I loved you. And that I still love you.”

It had been so long that Zayn had been anything but an obligation to Louis that the words sounded almost like a foreign language.

“And that makes everything all right, does it?”

“It really doesn’t. I’m so sorry, Zayn. I lost sight of you. Not because of your illness but because of me.” He stared at his interwoven fingers. “The truth is, I’ve spent half my life loving men who didn’t want me. It’s stupid, but there it is.”

“God. We really do have first-world problems, don’t we?”

Louis gave a soft sigh. “Yes, we do.” He unlocked his fingers and laced them with Zayn’s. It wasn’t until Louis touched him that Zayn realised how cold he was. “Unfortunately, they still hurt.”

Zayn nestled his hand into Louis’. It felt . . . nice. So nice that Zayn had to say ungraciously, “What did I do to deserve the pep talk? Or can’t you break the habit of trying to save me?”

But Louis only smiled. “I’m just pointing out that you’ve acted like a complete dick. Because that’s what friends do.”

Zayn pressed his free hand his my heart. “Oh, stop. Before I cry.”

“Wanker.”

“But you wuv me.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Suddenly Zayn blurted out, “I don’t have his number. I don’t even know where he lives.”

“Facebook? Twitter?”

Zayn realised he was digging his ragged nails into Louis’ hand and forced himself to relax. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t bother to ask. And, anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

“Look, I’m not trying to be your fairy godmother, and, for the life of me I can’t understand it, but it seemed to me you really liked him.”

“I didn’t like him. He just made me feel good. It wasn’t real. It was a biochemical blip.”

Louis shrugged. “When you put it like that, so is everything. That doesn’t make it worthless. Or any less real.”

“Then we’re all mad here,” Zayn muttered.

“We must be,” he said, smiling a little, “or we wouldn’t have come.”

They sat for a while in silence. A round, fat moon, jaundiced by the lights of the city, floated in an ink-blue sky.

“We’re probably missing the dinner,” Zayn said at last.

 “It’ll be fine. As long as we don’t miss the real thing.”

Zayn stole a glance at Louis. His face was so familiar that Zayn had long since ceased to pay it any attention. Once they had been friends, once they had been lovers. And now they were just two people who knew each other too well, who had—through carelessness, not malice—hurt each other too much.

Finally, Zayn said, “I know I never told you, but . . . I did care about you.” There was a pause. “I mean, as much as I’m capable of it.”

“Wow.” Louis looked thoughtful. “You are really bad at expressing your feelings.”

“Shut up. And,” Zayn swallowed. “I did want you. You’re, um, not entirely unwantable. And I’m sorry if I ever made you feel . . . like. Not.”

Louis made such a strange noise that Zayn thought he might have made him cry. But, no, he was laughing. And, laughing, he dragged Zayn into a hug.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Zayn protested. “Let me go!”

Eventually, Louis did. He shook his head. “Not entirely unwantable. Be still my beating heart.”

“Oh, leave me alone.” Zayn stared at the flagstones between his feet. “There’s . . . there’s one more thing.”

“My hooks are tentered.”

Zayn had always been certain this would be an admission of weakness, that it would lessen him somehow, or that it was a truth so fragile that utterance would shatter it. But the words slipped out, as they had in his whispered confession to Harry some days that felt like a lifetime ago, effortless as honey.

“Thank you for, you know, everything. And I’m glad you came back that day.”

They did not break. Zayn did not break. And he felt not mortified, but free.

Louis stared at him. And then began to cry.

“Will you stop it, you big nancy?” Zayn patted him awkwardly between the shoulders. Typical, really, that Zayn had fucked and been fucked by this man six ways to Sunday and he didn’t have a clue how to comfort him. “No wonder you can’t get a boyfriend.”

“I know you won’t believe me,” Louis said, sniffling, “but going out with you was okay. When we broke up, for ages afterwards, all I could think about was the bad stuff. But there was good too, wasn’t there?”

“Yes. You saved my life at least twice, once literally.” Zayn took a deep breath. “You’re kind of a muppet but I meant what I said.”

“You mean all that deeply sentimental, mushy stuff about you maybe caring about me just a little bit?”

“Look, I need to stop having this heart-to-heart before I throw up. My heart gets claustrophobic.”

Louis smiled in such a soggy way that Zayn felt obliged to give him my pocket square. “I can’t blow my nose into this.” Louis held it up in the moonlight like it was a priceless objet d’art. Zayn sensed Louis was mocking him, which was a vast improvement on crying. “It feels like sacrilege.”

“Gucci will never know.”

Louis snuffled into the handkerchief. And then tried to hand it back to Zayn.

“You can keep it. Really.”

“Well.” He somehow contrived to smirk, even with a red nose and swollen eyes. “Little Timmy won’t starve this winter.”

“Fuck you. I’m clinically depressed. I’m allowed to buy nice things.”

“You mean you’re a vain git with too much money.”

“That too.”

There was another silence. It was oddly comfortable. Zayn let his shoulder rest against Louis’, just a little bit, and they leaned against each other.

Eventually, Louis asked, “So, it’s definitely a no to the Notting Hill moment?”

Zayn nodded. “Even putting aside what an almighty fool I’d look, he deserves better than me. All it needed was a crowing cock to end the scene.”

Louis choked. “Did you just draw a direct comparison between you being a bit rude at a wedding and Peter’s denial of Jesus Christ?”

“I . . . might have gone too far there.”

“You think?”

“Well, I’m an atheist. They’re both just characters in a book I haven’t read.”

“Stop trying to dodge the issue.” Louis poked him in the leg. “Zayn, I’m not trying to be your conscience or anything, but you can’t just ditch Harry in the middle of Cambridge.”

Zayn hunched over his knees. “He’s probably already gone.”

“Then go check. Seriously, it’s the least you can do.”

“I can’t face him, I can’t. And, look”—his voice rose—“can you stop fucking judging me for five fucking seconds? It’s all you’ve ever done.”

Louis held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry. I just think it’s a shitty thing to do to someone.”

“No shittier than what I’ve already done.”

“Actually, I think it is. And you’re better than that, Zayn. I know you are.”

“I’m not.” Zayn shook his head. “Maybe once, but not anymore. Deal with it or don’t. But, if you’re going to try to be my friend again, stop pretending I’m someone I’m not.”

There was a long silence.

“That’s fucking unfair, you know.”

Zayn shrugged. “It’s the way it is.”

“Why are you trying to push me away? Was Harry not enough for one night?”

Louis was right, of course. Whatever the broken things they had scattered across the years, Louis knew him. And tonight Zayn was wielding his kindness like a blade to his skin.

“Sorry,” Zayn muttered.

“Wow. Progress.”

“Fuck off.”

He laughed. “So what now?”

“I don’t know. Back to the dinner, I guess. And, after the wedding, I might go home and watch Notting Hill. While crying manly tears and eating handful after handful of wasabi peas.”

The worst of it was, even Zayn couldn’t tell if he was joking.

“Want company?”

“No.” Zayn’s response was instinctive. But then he thought about it. “Actually. Yes. All right.”

Louis grinned. “You know, you’re shockingly sentimental, sometimes.”

Zayn shrugged. “All cynics are.”

              

 

Zayn stood on the Mathematical Bridge watching the moonlight curl over the dark waters of the Cam and tried not to think where Harry might be.

              

 

He walked cobbled streets, ankle-deep in shadows, trying to find the courage to return to their room, but there was only an emptiness, as unchanging as his tearless eyes.

              

 

Zayn took a ludicrously expensive room in a hotel on Thompson’s Lane. A lavish glass-walled box overlooking a gleaming toy city. Somewhere beneath the spires and gables, Harry Styles was hating him.

Zayn lay, fully dressed, on top of the bed and watched broken pieces of light skittering across the ceiling. He simply couldn’t face Harry’s disappointment. The damage Zayn knew he’d done. He’d ruined Harry, just like he’d ruined Louis. It was better this way, for both of them. Harry would get on with his life, and Zayn would drag himself through the ashes of his.

When Louis had left me, it had felt so inevitable. I can’t bear it, he’d said. I can’t bear you. Zayn had known for a long time how futile it was. He might as well have tried to love a parasite. Zayn had picked up the knife because he’d understood, at last, that there was no changing. No going back. And going on had seemed not only unbearable, but pointless. His whole life, an exercise in treading water simply not to drown.

And yet here he was, having made the same mistake all over again. Zayn should have learned, even if he was incapable of anything else. But Harry had slipped past him somehow, like light through fractured glass. For some bright, fleeting moments, he had made Zayn happy, and all Zayn had done was hurt him.

              

 

Cambridge drenched in a bloody dawn. Zayn’s world without Harry.

Sleep, of course, had proven elusive. Somehow, Zayn had grown too accustomed to his body and the murmur of his breath.

Zayn thought about going back to the room, but it was too late, and Harry would not have waited.

He would not have waited.

              

 

Harry had gone. There was nothing left in the room but Zayn’s suitcase and the heavy perfume of the wisteria.

Zayn sat down on the edge of the bed, which was still rumpled from their exertions yesterday. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

But it was better this way.

His last gift would not be his reproach.

Zayn could remember him laughing, sparkling. And he could keep deluding himself that, for a little while at least, he’d been the man Harry had believed he was, instead of the man Zayn actually is.

Dizzy, a little sick, he staggered to the window. Yanked up the sash. Zayn still couldn’t catch his breath. Oh God, fuck, he was going to die and, for once, he didn’t want to. He was choking on fucking wisteria. He braced himself against the casement and just about managed not to have a panic attack. he kept thinking he’d get used to them someday, but no. They thundered over Zayn like a train, like a fucking train, every fucking time.

In the quadrangle below, the wedding guests wandered aimlessly back and forth. Zayn should have been with them.

From a nearby window, open like his, drifted the opening bars of “F**kin’ Perfect.”

Zayn put his head in his hands and felt like crying.


	9. Chapter 9

When Louis left, the silence of Zayn’s flat felt like a funeral. He went into the kitchen to water the sole surviving plant, his attention drifting untethered between the grey-misted, grey-gravelled street below and the grey stream falling from the grey tap.

Zayn closed his eyes. He was going to crash, wasn’t he?

And now he was drowning the sole surviving plant.

He stuck it on the rack to dry out. The water droplets clinging to the leaves glittered like tears. They thudded onto the draining board, heavy as a heartbeat.

It was barely evening, but he crawled into bed. Depression-stupefied, weary and hopeless, he should have slept.

But he was strangely restless. Slightly tearful. And troubled by wayward thoughts.

Depression was thoughtless, tearless, an animal’s uncomprehending pain.

Some hours later, Zayn realised.

He wasn’t depressed. He was sad.

This little piece of hurt was all his own.

He lay there, in the dark, rolling the idea across his mind like a pearl.

              

 

Zayn would wake in the middle of the night, or pause arrested in his day, because his skin would shiver with the memory of a touch.

As though it wanted to tell him something.

              

 

The ideas unfurled across his whiteboard and, slowly at first, Zayn wrote them down, letter by letter until he had sentences, paragraphs, chapters.

Sophia said it felt different from the others. More about people than puzzles.

She said she liked it.

And Zayn liked writing it, his every word a piece of broken mirror, showing him a glimpse of Harry.

              

 

One day, after meeting Liam for coffee, Zayn stumbled down a back alley in Soho to get away from the crowds, having formed the erroneous impression that this would constitute a shortcut rather than a descent into hell. Somewhere between Eros Movie Rental, the French Pussy “Private Dancing” café, and a sex shop called The Whack Shack, he found himself staring at a small red door. It was edged in flaking gold and opened onto a narrow staircase leading who knew where. The reason he’d stopped at all was because the sign above the door read “Alice in Inkland.”

Zayn was not in the habit of wandering, at random, into mysterious buildings in Soho, and years spent trying to rationalise the ever-spinning fairground ride of his depression had left him with a deep wariness of impulsive behaviour. Impetuous to insane was too narrow a line, too easy a step. His first thought, as he hesitated (curious and curiouser) on the threshold of that odd little door, was that perhaps it didn’t exist. There weren’t any passersby so there was no way to subtly re-orientate himself by the road markers of other people’s behaviour. But Zayn did have his phone, and a cursory Google search confirmed that there was, indeed, a newly opened tattoo parlour in Soho called Alice in Inkland.

Which at least meant that he wasn’t slipping heedlessly into mania.

Zayn couldn’t have explained why, but he went inside. At the top of the staircase was a tiny, red-painted room, the walls liberally plastered with posters, photographs, flyers, and glass-fronted frames containing what he presumed had to be tattoo . . . art? There was a counter against the far wall, carved with the words “Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink.” There was also nobody there.

Thank fuck.

He turned to leave.

“Can I help you?”

Zayn turned, like a thief caught in the act. From a door he hadn’t noticed, a woman he presumed to be the owner had emerged. She was, frankly, enormous. With hair as red as a poinsettia plant. She was wearing a sleeveless top that showed the tattoos that swirled, bright and savage, up her arms and across her shoulders.

He blinked, stammered, and gestured ineffectually with his hands.

“Riiiight. See, this is why I don’t do walk-ins. Same reason I won’t shag you if you’re drunk.”

“Um. Pardon? I’m not drunk. Not that I want to shag you. No offence. I’m just not into. Women. Um. Pardon?”

“I’m not something you regret in the morning.”

“I’ll be going.” Zayn indicated the door.

But her voice called him back. “What did you want, anyway?”

Harry. World peace. Actually, fuck world peace. Harry. “I think I . . . wanted a tattoo.”

“I got that much. From you walking into a tattoo parlour.”

“Oh, right.”

She folded her arms. “What did you have in mind, bozo?”

He felt heat surge to his cheeks. This was exactly why he didn’t do impulsive. “I sort of wanted a name.”

Her eyes made a lazily appraising journey from his to his toes, and then back up again. “That sounds like a story.”

“It’s not a story. It’s an epilogue.”

“I’m an artist, not a stonemason.” She made an illustrative gesture in his direction. “And that’s a body, not a tombstone.”

“All the same.”

“Again: art, not therapy.”

Zayn arched a brow at her. “Art is therapy.”

She was silent a moment. “What’s your name?”

“Z.J. Malik.”

“What, the novelist?”

Too late now. “Yes.”

“I dig your books. I enjoy a good mystery. But I don’t know why you keep murdering everybody your detective likes.”

“It’s so I don’t have to bother with character development. Are you going to do this, or not?”

She snorted like a particularly peeved Minotaur. “So you can laser me off when you have a change of heart?”

“I don’t think my heart is changing any time soon.”

“Hmm.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Zayn said at last, “how do you make any money at this? For a tattoo artist, you seem pretty reluctant to do any tattooing.”

“For a man claiming he wants a tattoo, you seem pretty reluctant to get a tattoo.”

“Touché. But actually,” he said, surprising himself, “I’m not.” And it was true. He nearly laughed. At least there would be something on his arms that was the consequence of a rational choice. If whatever he felt for Harry could in any way be described as rational.

“Have you given any thought to a style? A look? Placement?”

“I honestly don’t care.” He was giddy with his own power. “Just don’t put it in a big red heart and we’re good.”

She gave him a vicious glare, stomped round to her counter, pulled out a book, and slammed it down. “Look at my portfolio, mister. Look at it.”

Zayn looked.

“Do you see anything in there resembling a big red heart?”

“No.”

 He turned the pages. Her work was rather striking.

“Do you actually know anything about this at all?” she asked suddenly.

“No.”

She flapped an impatient hand at him. “Did the internet pass you by? Oh, wait, I know, you’re a time traveller. You’re dressed like one.”

“Yes, yes, I’m a Time Lord. Now, can I have a tattoo?”

“You should research shit before you jump right in. I could be any sort of unsanitary incompetent.”

“I suspect—” He closed her book and passed it back across the counter. “—if you were an unsanitary incompetent, you’d be gleefully branding me right now.”

There was a long silence.

Zayn stooped to base manipulation. “Look, if you don’t, I’ll find an unsanitary incompetent.”

She stared at him through narrowed eyes. “Okay. Come on through.”

He followed her into the second room. In contrast to the first, he felt like he’d turned up unexpectedly at the dentist. Everything was very neat and precisely laid out. In one corner there was a sink area and an autoclave, in the other a bench laid with inks and equipment. He took the big padded chair in the middle. It reminded him weirdly of getting ECT.

“What’s your name?” he heard myself ask.

“I go by Alice.”

Zayn supposed he should have guessed.

When she was done at the sink, she came and sat down next to him. “Not your arse then?” She lifted her brows wickedly.

“Forearm will do, thank you very much.”

He peeled off his jacket, rolled up his sleeve, and turned his hand palm up.

“Want me to cover this up for you?” She tapped his scar.

In case of emergency, break skin?

“So I can look like someone who not only failed to kill himself, but then tried to hide failing to kill himself under a tattoo?”

“It could have been a really hardcore cat for all I care.” She shrugged, her fingers assessing his skin for the inadequate canvas it was.

“Well, it wasn’t.”

They talked a little about colour, positioning, and size, and then she said, “You still haven’t told me the name.”

“Oh, right. It’s . . .” Why was it so difficult to say aloud? “Harry.”

“And how are you spelling that? Don’t want a ‘beautiful tradgedy’ going on.”

“With two r’s. H-A-R-R-Y.”

“What’s he like?” she asked.

“He made me happy.”

“Wow, I feel like I know the guy. I can tell you’re a writer. It was like seeing a word picture materialise before my very eyes.” There was a pause. “Do you maybe want to try that again?”

It took him a long time, but, on this occasion, she didn’t press him.

“He . . . he . . . he’s a kind, ridiculous, beautiful glittery person. I don’t know what else I can tell you. He makes me laugh. He makes me hopeful.”

It was only after he’d spoken that Zayn realised: present tense.

“I can work with that. I’ll freehand for a bit, and if you like it, we’ll go from there.”

“All right.”

She picked up a pen, put it to his arm, and a ribbon of ink unfurled across his skin.

“By the way,” she said, “you didn’t ask the question.”

“What question?”

“The question everyone asks. Will it hurt.”

“I don’t care if it hurts.”

              

 

Across the moon-pale scar that marred Zayn’s forearm, Harry danced in dark ink, the gracefully curving edges of his name unravelling into a spill of colour as joyful and haphazard as the promise of stars.

              

 

Walking with Sophia to a signing, they passed a trendy clothing chain, the sort of place that sold about twelve different types of jeans, and there was Harry. He’d been poured into one of the twelve types of jeans and was tugging playfully at a long, multicoloured scarf. Like most of his work, it was a careful piece of self-composition, but there was enough of his Harry, in the smile and in the eyes, that Zayn had to look away.

“I banged a model,” he said. “Check me.”

But, somehow, the words didn’t come out right and he just sounded sad.

              

 

Zayn was sitting by the bar, reading 100% Cheshire: Doing It the Cheshire Way on my Kindle (for research), essentially on-call for the latest of Louis’ inevitably disastrous dates. He was over by the window and had already run his hand through his hair three times—which either meant he was flirting or it was the signal for “Help, get me out of here.” In retrospect, it had been a bad choice of signal. Next time Zayn would suggest quacking like a duck if he wanted the date to end, which would send a clear message and come with the added benefit of not requiring his involvement.

“C-can I maybe buy you a drink?”

Without looking up, Zayn quirked a finger in the direction of his Coke (full fat, not diet, with ice, and lime not lemon). “I’ve already got one.”

“Oh. Yes.” A nervous laugh. “I didn’t really think that through.”

Relenting, Zayn put down his Kindle. “It’s quite a context-dependent line.”

“What would you suggest?” asked the Adonis at his side.

Dear God. Those eyes. That mouth. That body. Oh, that body. And he seemed to be talking to me. Zayn waited for his libido to notice, but it lay there like a dead cat in a basket, and all the prodding in the world wouldn’t rouse it.

This was officially fucking ridiculous.

And Zayn couldn’t keep staring at him, waiting for his cock to get with the programme.

“How about . . .” Zayn held out his sleeve, running a thumb lightly over the fabric. “What do you call this?”

“Um. A jacket? A sleeve? A really nice suit?”

“Steady on, we’re not playing charades with auntie. The material.”

“Oh, right. I’d say . . .” He touched it delicately with a forefinger. “Super 120 wool.”

“I like a man who knows his fabric, but the correct answer was . . . boyfriend material.”

There was a not-quite-awkward silence.

“I think you ruined my delivery,” Zayn said. “Normally I’m beating them off with sticks after that one.”

“I believe it,” he replied, with just enough irony to almost make Zayn smile. “Shawn,” added the divine creature, holding out a hand for Zayn to shake.

“Z.J. Mal— Actually, call me Zayn.”

“What do you do, Zayn?”

“I’m a writer, I supply terrible pickup lines to strange men in bars, and I’m a bipolar depressive.”

“I’m a freelance web designer, and, err, I have OCD actually.”

“What a relief we can’t breed together.”

Shawn gave a startled laugh. “It’s not so bad. It’s not crippling or anything. Just really annoying for whoever I’m dating.”

“I’m not looking for a relationship, Shawn.”

Well, that was blunt. Zayn winced. The man had barely said hello.

But he was, if anything, even more embarrassed than Zayn was. He slapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh, shit. That sounded like I was coming on way too strong.” He gave a lopsided smile, far too sheepish for a man who looked like a walking wet dream. One of his front teeth was slightly crooked. Before Zayn had met Harry, he would never have noticed. “Bunny-boiling comments aside,” Shawn said, “I’m not necessarily looking for a relationship either.”

His eyes lingered on Zayn, his smile curving suggestively.

He re-checked my libido for signs of life. There was nothing. He thought about going with Shawn anyway.

But Zayn didn’t want to.

Fuck. Did this mean he’d grown as a person?

“I’m probably going to regret this for the rest of my life,” Zayn said, “because you are seriously the most gorgeous man who has ever failed to pull me, but . . . I don’t think I’m looking for that either.”

To his credit, Shawn didn’t drop him like a plastic carrier bag. “Just out of something?”

“I wasn’t even in it.”

“Oh, those are the worst kind.” Shawn slipped gracefully onto the barstool next to Zayn, moved the menu into alignment with the beer mats, and then hastily dis-arranged them again.

“I can’t even bring myself to rebound,” Zayn said, pretending he hadn’t noticed. “I’m just sort of stuck.”

“What happened?”

“Bloody hell, I’ve turned into one of those wounded men who sit around in bars and whinge on about their broken hearts to hotties they should be fucking.”

“It’s fine. Really. I think one chat-up per night, maybe per year, is about my limit.”

So Zayn told him. Or, at least, he started. But then Louis flopped down onto the other free seat and interrupted by yelling at Zayn. “What the hell was that? Where was my rescue? He could have been psycho.”

“Was he?”

“No, just another closeted stockbroker with submission fantasies.”

“I thought you liked him.” Zayn shrugged. “You usually flick your hair about when you fancy someone.”

“I do not!” Louis tried to lean casually past Zayn so he could see Shawn. Subtle, Louis, subtle. “So, what were you two talking about?”

Zayn tried to sound casual. “Oh, nothing much.”

“Nothing much? I know what that means. Can you please stop moping about Harry?”

Zayn hung his head. “I can’t help it, I’m sorry.”

“For God’s sake, why don’t you just apologise?”

“Because . . . because . . . I can’t. Because then it’ll be over.”

Louis pulled over Zayn’s Coke and took a gulp. “It’s already over. You’re not with him, are you? And look at it this way: if he feels about you even a little bit of the way you feel about him, he’ll understand. And if he doesn’t, you owe the poor bastard an apology anyway. Because you were a shitbag.”

“What did you do?” asked Shawn, wide-eyed.

Before Zayn could explain, Louis jumped in. “You know that bit in the Bible when they’re all like, ‘Yo Peter, do you know this Jesus bloke?’ and he’s like, ‘Hell, no.’ It was like that, but even worse.”

“My word.”

Louis abandoned even a pretence of subtlety, put his elbows on the bar, and peered around Zayn. Shawn gave him a little wave, and Louis sat back with a stunned expression on his face. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Shut up, both of you.” It was hard to look stern in two different directions, but Zayn managed it. “I make one slightly hyperbolic comparison and I never hear the end of it. By the way, Louis, Shawn, Shawn, Louis.” Hmm. Payback time. “Shawn’s a web designer. Louis works for a charitable trust. He particularly enjoys brunettes and people with issues, so . . .” Zayn made a you two should totally shag gesture. And grinned as Louis went bright red.

“I can’t believe you said that,” he muttered. “You are just the worst friend ever.”

Shawn laughed. “We should probably get married. It’ll make a great story to tell the grandkids.”

“What? It was all going really well until my arse of a mate decided to throw me to the wolves and that stole your heart away?”

“Come on,” Zayn protested, “it was funny.” But they weren’t paying much attention to him.

“So, what kind of charity do you work for?”

“We’re an independent educational equality think tank. We could, ah, do with a new website actually.” Louis fiddled with the straw in Zayn’s Coke glass. “Perhaps you could come and . . . maybe . . . do some consulting for us. We could discuss it, um, over dinner?”

Zayn felt almost sorry for Louis. He’d gone the ashen colour of a man stuck in the middle of a dreadful line but unable to get out without finishing it.

“I’d love to take a look at your website.” Perhaps Shawn found ineptitude endearing. “And I’d love to go for dinner.”

Louis grinned sappily. “Then it’s a date.”

“I thought you said it was a consultation.”

“It’s a date. For a consultation.” He paused. “Oh fuck it. Fine. It’s a date, all right? Come on a date with me. Save me from myself. I clearly need help.” Belatedly, Louis seemed to remember Zayn still existed. “Err, we’re going to get some food. Do you want to come?”

“Do I want to be the third wheel on your consultative date consultation date? Now let me think about it. No.” Zayn gave Louis’s arm a quick squeeze. “And, anyway, I’m washing my hair.”

He left them to it.

              

 

Sleepless, of course, infinite scenarios scrolling behind Zayn’s eyes like a cinema of self-destruction.

The problem with admitting the value of anything was the pain that followed its loss.

And Zayn was still lying, the strata of his self-deceptions so deep and intricate, even he sometimes lacked the power to see through them.

The truth then, stark in the bleak hours after midnight. It would have been noble to cast himself at Harry’s feet and ask for nothing in return. But Zayn wanted everything.

Everything. Whether he deserved it or not.

Once, Zayn had lived a life full of wanting and, like anyone else, he’d taken it for granted. But, in time, depression had flayed it from him, the wanting, the everyday hopes and dreams, and all the little desires. They became too dangerous to keep, too fragile to survive, and his bitter, barren soul could nurture no new ones. He’d kept only compromises, the shadows of old passions, things he just about learned to preserve.

Today is a day in which Zayn will not want to die.

Today is a day in which he will want to get out of bed.

His writing, his few remaining friends, the harsh, meaningless sex he sought with strangers: these were safe to want, and he knew they would not be taken from him.

But a lover? Zayn was so very afraid of Harry—the unsought miracle—and almost relieved to have driven him away. Yet the wanting remained, like the memory of Harry’s hands on his skin.

He wanted Harry. With a pure, deep certainty, the first Zayn had known for a very long time.

Through the darkness, came the sharp, sudden quickstepping of his pulse. But it was not fear alone he felt. It was something else, too rare and insubstantial a thing to bear its naming.

When Zayn was young, the world had given him so much and everything had come so easily to him, that he’d hardly needed to try. And if he had ever struggled against his illness—if, that was, it had not already eroded him past the point of recognition—it was in a manner invisible even to himself. Through hospital days, his mother’s voice, ringing sweetly: “Just try a little, darling, can’t you try?” Zayn hadn’t even fought to live. Paramedics had dragged him back from the threshold of death.

But he would fight for Harry.

Sacrifice be damned, selfish or not, hopeless or not, Zayn would fight for Harry.

He had no expectations of success, but he would try anyway, with all his meagre strength.

For Harry and for him, for Zayn’s right to try, and Harry’s right to have Zayn, and because Zayn wanted him. He knew Harry would reject him and he knew it would hurt, but, even so, that nameless seed was still unfurling, unflinching and full-blossomed in the heart of some long-sealed garden.

 

              

 

Zayn stumbled around the back streets of Brentwood, heart pounding, squinting at Google Maps, trying to find Gemma’s boutique. This was such a bad idea.

But then he found it. Bedazzled.

It was, indeed, bedazzling. Zayn’s eyes recoiled. He pushed open the pink-painted door and stepped inside. More pink. Rack after rack of jewel-bright dresses. Gilded mirrors so ornate even the Victorians would have disdained them. Leopard-print throw pillows arranged on a pink satin chaise longue. And Gemma, in a charcoal grey pencil dress and a set of killer heels, glaring at him. She did not, however, seem surprised to see him.

She tipped up her chin like a woman preparing for battle. “I think you’ve been totally out of order.”

“Bang out of order,” Zayn agreed.

Her eyebrows veed into a frown so tight it was like standing at the centre of a sniper’s crosshair. “Are you being funny? Cos it isn’t funny. It’s out of order.”

Zayn held up his hands in a gesture of abject surrender. “I know.”

“What’s wrong with you? Why would you say something like that to him?”

“Because I’m an arse.”

“Yeah,” she said fiercely. “Yeah, you are. I thought you weren’t. But you were.”

Zayn had so often claimed that he would rather risk hatred than endure pity, but it was only as he flinched from the fury in Gemma’s eyes that he recognised yet another self-deception. Although he had earned it, her mistrust saddened him. There was no safety in being disliked. No solitary pride. Merely isolation, and the acknowledgement of everything selfishness and fear had wrought.

“Is . . . is he okay?”

“Course he is,” she snapped. “Did you think I was going let him sit around crying after you mugged him off? It was—” She shook her head at the unfathomable awfulness of Zayn. “—so out of order, disrespecting Harry like that.”

Zayn’s heart gave a strange little squeeze. Harry’s name rippled through his mind, stirring a rush of memories: the curve of his smile, the flattened vowels that once offended Zayn’s ears, the stutter of his breath as he came, the constellations of freckles across his shoulders.

“He hasn’t been waiting for you,” she said sternly.

“Is he with someone?” Zayn asked, unable to stop himself.

There was an excruciatingly long silence. Gemma’s hands clenched into fists. “Oooh, I really wanna say yes. Cos it’d make you go away. But I’m not a liar so . . . no, he isn’t. But don’t go thinking it’s cos he couldn’t be. Or that it’s anything to do with you. He’s just been busy with work.”

“I really need to tell him I didn’t mean what I said.” His voice warbled tragically. “I just want to apol—”

“You better not be sniffing around trying to get back with him,” interrupted Gemma mercilessly, “cos you proper blew it.” Zayn glanced up and his expression must have betrayed him. “Oh my god, you are. What a nerve!”

Zayn sat down on the edge of the chaise longue and put his head in his hands. “I fucked up. But I know I want to be with him. More than anything.”

She did not look impressed. “How many months did it take you to work that out?”

“It was . . . complicated.”

“It wasn’t complicated, honey.”

Zayn had never heard someone use an endearment as an insult before. He could hardly meet her eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t. I have no expectations that he’ll forgive me, let alone want to try again, but I need to tell him.”

Her foot tapped an angry rhythm on the floor. “Tell him what?”

“H-how I feel.” Thankfully, she let that one go, so he rushed on. “And that I’m sorry and I didn’t mean any of the things I said.”

“Then why did you say them, honey?”

A question Zayn had asked himself repeatedly, obsessively, and still hadn’t answered. Because he can’t be trusted?

“We all say things we don’t mean sometimes,” he offered.

“Yes, we do,” she agreed, nodding, and he had brief, ill-conceived hope that he might have won her round, “but it’s things like ‘no, you look good as a brunette,’ and ‘no, you haven’t got a big bum,’ not things like ‘I’m only with him cos he’s cheaper than a prostitute.’”

“It was because I was scared, okay?” He pulled convulsively at his cuffs. “Because it was easier to pretend I didn’t care than admit I did.”

Gemma watched him squirm without much sympathy. “I think that’s pathetic. I don’t care what Robbie Williams finks about it.”

“To be honest, I haven’t asked him.” Zayn took a deep breath. “Will you please tell me where I can find Harry? Or give me his number. Or something? Anything?”

“If it was up to me,” she said flatly, “I wouldn’t.”

“Well, it is kind of up to you,” he pointed out.

“Well, no, it isn’t. It’s up to Harry. Cos if you wanted to talk to him and I was like ‘no way, cos you’re a dickhead,’ it’d be like in that movie where Leonardo DiCaprio is all . . . you know—” She held up her hands and looked sadly at the ceiling, doing quite a good impression of a frozen, dead Leonardo DiCaprio sinking slowly into the depths of the ocean.

“What, Titanic?”

“Oh no, not that one. The other one.” She thought about it for a moment. “Where he’s trying to get it together with this girl but she has to pretend to be dead or whatever and there’s a message that says ‘I’m not really dead, just faking,’ but he doesn’t get it and it’s all bad.”

“You mean,” Zayn asked carefully, “Romeo and Juliet.”

“Yeah, and don’t look at me like that cos at school we did the one with the witches. But the point is, I think Harry shouldn’t talk to you like ever again, but that’s up to him, innit?”

“That’s a very enlightened attitude.”

“Yeah, it is.” She nodded gravely. “And if you hurt him again, I’ll cut your balls off.”

His eyes fell on a pair of dress shears lying by the till. “Right.”

“He’s probably at home with mum.”

“Of course. He lives with his mother. I should have guessed.”

Gemma scowled at him, and it was ferocious. “Well, where else is he supposed to live?”

“I don’t know. With friends? By himself, like a normal twenty-three-year-old?”

“Then who’d look after mum? She’s had a fall. And I can’t keep my business closed.”

“Your dad?” Zayn shrugged.

Her eyes burned like twin fires. “Well, our father left when he was two and I was four.”

There was a silence so awful that a girl came in, presumably to buy one of the interchangeable, tiny dresses, took one look at us, and ran out again, wedges clattering on the wooden floor.

“I didn’t know.”

“It’s not a secret, honey.”

There was another gruelling silence. Gemma’s gaze was as unwavering as a spotlight.

“You really hate me, don’t you?”

She considered it. “I don’t think I hate you. I just don’t think you’re a very nice person. And that hasn’t got anything to do with being bipolar depressed.”

“I know. And you’re right.”

“I think you really let down Stephen Fry.”

“I did. Also probably Robbie Williams.” Her eyes narrowed, like insincerity-seeking laser beams. Zayn quickly changed tack. “And I hurt Harry, I know. I’m not trying to make excuses—”

“You better not.”

“I’m not. I have no excuses. Just a world of shame. But what I was going to say was that—” he paused, twisting his fingers painfully together, his nails catching at his skin. “—it’s difficult, sometimes, for me to understand that I have the power to hurt someone. You see, it requires me to accept that somebody might like me in the first place.”

She blinked, the coal black fronds of her lashes drifting up and down like palm leaves stirred by a desert storm. “I thought you were okay before you were a dick for no reason,” she said gently. “And Harry thinks you’re some kinda super-genius sex god, so you must be doing something alright somewhere.”

“He . . . he what?”

“But,” she pressed on, refusing to indulge him with more enchanting stories about what Harry used to think of him, “what are you saying all this to me for?”

“Well, you still haven’t told me his address.”

“Suppose I have to.” She picked up a pink, sparkly business card, turned it over, and scribbled on the back with a pink, fluffy pen.

Zayn escaped a few minutes later, Gemma’s final warning tolling in my ears: “You better not make me regret giving you that address, honey.” Safely out of sight of the shop window, he leaned against a wall, gasping a little, clutching the card in a sweating hand.

Now would be a really bad time to have a panic attack.

Unlike all the really good times to have a panic attack, which were myriad.

All he had to do was find Harry, try to make him understand why he’d done what he’d done, tell him he was sorry, listen to whatever Harry wanted to say to him (most likely “fuck you”), and leave again. And, somehow, in the middle of it all, find an opportunity to throw himself at Harry’s feet to prove that, in his hopeless, ramshackle way, Zayn truly cared.

That did not require the courage of Ajax.

So, why was he about to collapse in the middle of Ropers Yard? He slipped the card into his breast pocket to keep it safe and tried to steady his breathing.

The truth was, Gemma had shamed him, not so much with harsh words, but by her actions. She’d given him Harry’s contact details because she believed in his right to decide what he wanted. When had Zayn ever done that? Even in Cambridge, he had put his pain above Harry’s and run away rather than face his anger or his hurt. Zayn had used him, and hidden myself from Harry, and finally betrayed him. Partially, yes, in the solipsism of depression, unable to see beyond his illness into a world in which other people were something more than hazy shadows cast across his sky. But mainly out of selfishness and fear, ingrained habits of self-protection turned in upon themselves like septic toenails.

The worst of it was, Zayn was still doing it.

If he truly wanted to be with Harry, it had to be his choice, as much as it was Zayn’s. He couldn’t keep manipulating Harry and deceiving him and trying to present himself as better than he was. Zayn had to stand in front of him, in all his ugly, twisted selfhood, and tell Harry he wanted him. And hope, against everything Zayn believed possible, that Harry could want him back.

That did require the courage of Ajax. And Zayn’s heart was spinning like a Catherine wheel.

Zayn simply couldn’t imagine Harry saying yes. It had taken far too long, but Zayn was, at last, capable of recognising that what he felt for Harry was real, not just a delusion born of madness or sex or loneliness or despair. He truly made Zayn happy and, perhaps, Zayn had the power to do the same for harry. Not long ago, the idea that Zayn could affect someone’s life would have terrified him. Now he merely wanted to deserve that trust. Harry had treated Zayn as though he’d had no fear of any pain he might cause Harry. Or, rather, that he believed Zayn was worth it. And Zayn had been too afraid, too lost, to see either Harry’s courage or his generosity.

What had Harry said? Sadness is just a thing what happens. Well, now it was Zayn’s turn to open my heart and let Harry reject me, if that was what he wanted. Zayn could bear a little pain for him, surely? For someone who—for a few shining moments—had helped him remember what it was like to feel human, happy, and hopeful.

Zayn closed his eyes. Breathe, Zayn, breathe.

And slowly, slowly, like watching toothpaste miraculously fold itself back into the tube, Zayn pushed away the panic.

Then he walked towards High Street and hailed a taxi.


	10. Chapter 10

Zayn was staring at the stained glass insert of Harry’s mother’s front door, trying to find both his courage and the sticking place. He didn’t know how long he stood there. He probably looked like a very nervous door-to-door salesman. Or like he was casing the joint. Finally, in a rush of frantic energy that was closer to desperation than bravery, Zayn knocked.

Harry opened the door within seconds. “Alright, babe?”

Zayn could barely breathe. He’d grown so used to the dull ache of absence that seeing Harry again was an impossible entanglement of pleasure, pain, and desperate longing. Zayn half-imagined the letters of his name, inscribed on his skin and safely hidden under his suit, shimmering in recognition, like some magic spell, attuned only to Harry.

Zayn had been imagining this moment for months. Well, something like this moment, for in his wildest fantasies it hadn’t taken place in Brentwood. Through sleepless nights and distracted days, he’d as good as lived every possible scenario: from the one where they fell immediately into a passionate embrace, to the one where Harry chased him down the garden path with a carving knife.

In none of them had Harry been wearing a Union Jack onesie. Zayn had a vague memory of reading an article in The Independent about the sudden and inexplicable popularity of adult romper suits, but he’d never imagined he’d see someone actually wearing one. The Norwegians really did have a lot to answer for.

He stared at Harry. “You look like the British National Party’s Easter Bunny.”

Harry cast a proud glance downwards. “It’s safe, innit?”

“Not the word I was reaching for.”

He smiled, a little uncertain, a little sad, and Zayn realised he’d lost the right to be heedlessly insulting and watch him laugh it off because it would never have occurred to him to look for malice. Zayn thought he knew self-loathing well enough that its barbs had long since lost their sting. But he was wrong. In his absurd visualisations, he’d always been so bound up in imagining Harry’s reactions that he hadn’t thought about his own. It hadn’t even occurred to him Zayn might just want to fall to pieces on his doorstep out of sheer sorrow and regret.

He stood there helpless and speechless until Harry took pity on him. “Didn’t think I was ever gonna see you again.”

“Didn’t Gemma tell you I was coming?”

Harry pointed at his hair. “This doesn’t happen by magic, babe. My hair would’ve been a right state if she hadn’t.”

“Wait, you did your hair, but not the . . .” Zayn pointed at the fashion homicide he was casually perpetrating.

“These things take time, babe. And if a onesie’s good enough for Cheryl Cole, it’s good enough for me.”

Either Harry was so superlatively beautiful that even a Union Jack onesie couldn’t blight him, or Zayn was so superlatively besotted that he found beauty even in his Union Jack onesie.

Or: Zayn really was insane.

Harry took a slow, deliberate step back from the doorway, as if Zayn was some kind of wild thing that would turn on him if he wasn’t careful. “Do you wanna come in?”

This had already all gone so very awry. There was something a little jarring about his calm when Zayn felt as jangled as a bag of cymbals. Why was he inviting Zayn inside as if he was an old friend paying a casual visit? Shouldn’t he have been yelling at Zayn? Slamming the door in his face?

“Do . . . do you mind?”

He shook his head. “No. Mum’s out. Gone shopping with her friends.”

Harry stood back to let him past. Zayn was trying so hard to control his breathing, which had gone fast and shallow and terrified, that he somehow managed to trip over the very low, very obvious step. Harry caught his arm to steady him, warmth flowing from his hand. “You alright?”

No. Not when his touch woke the memory of a thousand other touches. His hands on Zayn’s skin. Harry’s body under his. Zayn’s mouth on his cock. Not when all Zayn suddenly wanted to do was to fall down with him, right there on the paisley-patterned carpet, and never let go. “Yes.”

They went down the hallway into a living room. Cosy and cluttered, with overstuffed sofa cushions and unnecessary end tables everywhere. Knickknacks and souvenirs were littered across every available surface, the memoirs of English seaside towns, a porcelain plate propped proudly on a little stand, showing a badly painted map of Ibiza. On the mantelpiece sat a flourishing spider plant overspilling from a misshapen clay pot, clearly made by a child’s loving hands and daubed with the legend World [sic] Best Mum. Zayn tried to remember if he had ever presented something like that to his parents. Surely he must have? His mother would sometimes put his report cards on the fridge if Zayn got enough As.

Tucked into the frame of the mirror over the fireplace were cards celebrating long-gone but still cherished occasions, and it was impossible to construct the wallpaper’s pattern behind the pictures and photographs that covered it. It was like watching lifetimes pass before your eyes. There was Harry’s mum with Gemma on her graduation day. There was a teenage Gemma, sunbathing in an extremely small bikini, looking like a straight man’s dream come true. And Harry, of course. From smiling, pudgy childhood to a visibly unhappy adolescence to his grinning, glittering self.

Zayn understood occasion photographs. There was a family photograph in their hallway. His mother brought us all together for a new one every five years. And Zayn knew a framed copy of his graduation photo was hanging in one of the drawing rooms next to the one of his father with his sisters.

But these were photographs of nothing. A toddling Harry and a toddling Gemma standing, with slightly shocked expressions, in the snow. A tiny baby Harry cradled in a slightly bigger Gemma’s arms. Harry in his school uniform, eating toast. Harry and his mum at the beach. Harry and Gemma in the garden. Harry and Gemma, dressed to kill, sharing a bottle of champagne in the kitchen. Birthday after birthday after birthday. Christmas after Christmas after Christmas.

Zayn was fascinated. So many meaningless moments. So treasured.

On one wall, surrounded by the smiles of other people, was a dark-haired man.

“Is that your father?” Zayn asked.

“Yeah. She left when I was little. I don’t remember anything about him.”

“I’m sorry.” Sorry for not listening. Sorry for not caring. Sorry for being too afraid to care. Sorry for being selfish. Sorry for being cruel. Sorry for being himself. Sorry for not being one-tenth of the man Harry thought he was.

Harry shrugged. “Just one of those things.”

“Did you ever think of looking for him?”

“Course.”

“What happened?”

Harry gave a strange sort of laugh. “Nothing happened, babe. Life doesn’t work like a storybook with a proper ending.”

“You couldn’t find him?”

“Didn’t look. We haven’t gone anywhere, he knows how to find us. I reckon if he wanted to be here, he’d be here.”

Zayn didn’t know what to say to him. “Well,” he tried, “maybe he couldn’t. For whatever reason.” As comfort—or platitude—it might have been more effective if Zayn had actually been able to come up with a reason.

But Harry nodded. “That’s what I like to think. It’s better than thinking he just doesn’t want me and Gemma, do you know what I mean?”

Zayn thought he’d long ago lost both the capacity and the desire to deal with the everyday pain of other people. There was nothing he could do that would make it better for Harry, but Zayn wanted to stand at his side and let the world come, with all its minor setbacks and arbitrary cruelties. Maybe, in Zayn’s frailty, he would flinch; maybe his strength would buckle; but maybe it didn’t matter as long he was there.

And maybe it was all too late.

“I can’t imagine anyone not wanting you, Harry.”

Harry’s eyes met his, clear as the sky, and he gave Zayn a bitter little smile. “Course you can, babe.” But before Zayn could protest, Harry added, “Do you want anything. Like some tea or whatever?”

“No. Thank you.”

They stood in the middle of the living room, suddenly looking at everything but each other.

“Dou you wanna like sit down or something?”

“I need to talk to you about what happened,” Zayn blurted out, finally managing to meet his eyes. “I need you to know I didn’t mean any of the things I said, and I’m so sorry I said them.”

Harry’s gaze skittered away. “Aw, babe, that’s alright. I mean, it was harsh. But it’s alright.”

Gemma had been right. Harry was over him and had been for a long time. Zayn tried to think of something to say, stuttered into helpless silence, and, this time, Harry did not help him. Locked outside his eyes, held at bay by his politeness, it felt like a cold and vast eternity. Zayn tugged at his cuffs, mustering what remained of his dignity. “Oh, well, it’s just, I wanted to—” It was all so completely hopeless. Zayn was beached by his indifference. He had expected it. It was a fitting conclusion. But, God, it hurt. The true, pure sting of loss, untainted by depression, madness, or denial. “It’s not even remotely all right.” He swallowed what felt like a sodden lump of words and tears. “You don’t have to be nice to me about it.”

“Well, my mum always says it doesn’t cost anything—”

“—to be polite,” Zayn finished.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you angry with me? You should be.”

“Oh, I was, babe. I had the hump like you wouldn’t believe. But it doesn’t matter now.” Harry fiddled absently with the zip on his onesie.

And that was then Zayn realised: Harry was lying to him. Something else Zayn had apparently taught him.

“Harry.” Zayn tried to catch his eye, but Harry wouldn’t turn his head, and he knew it for the rejection it was. “Harry, please. I know I behaved unforgivably, but you have to believe me when—”

“Mate, it wasn’t a big deal.” Finally Harry turned. His mouth was tight, and in the depths of his eyes, like a wisp of cloud, there was a piece of fresh pain Zayn had put there. “Not until you made it one. I mean, I was narked at first, but then I thought about it, and I knew you didn’t mean any of it.”

Zayn’s mouth dropped open. Something brash and joyous filled his heart like fireworks. “You knew?”

“I’m not a total idiot. I could see what was going on. I only came over cos they were being a bunch of bell ends, and you looked like you were in a right state.”

“Yes, but I still shouldn’t have said what I said. I hate myself for it.”

“Forget it.” His voice had been brittle with assumed lightness, but now it turned sharp. “If you wanna feel bad, feel bad cos you dumped me in Cambridge without even saying ‘thank you, ’ave a nice life.’” Harry scuffed his toe into the carpet. “I waited all night,” he whispered, “but you never came.”

Zayn’s breath caught. He felt, suddenly, a little sick. “W-what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh God.” Of course he’d waited. Harry was the kindest person Zayn had ever met. Even after everything that had happened, he would still have given Zayn the benefit of the doubt, which is more than he’d ever done for Harry. How had Zayn convinced himself he was doing the right thing, running from him all across Cambridge, as though Harry was some monster of Zayn’s own devising? Zayn had had his reasons, but it was like looking over his shoulder at depression: an irrational stranger’s choices, driven only by the most incomprehensible shadows of the self. Zayn reached for what seemed the simplest explanation. “I should have come after you, but I was too ashamed.”

Harry only shrugged. “So I knew I’d had it right the first time around, and that everything you’d said was true.”

Zayn stared at him in dismay. It was too easy to imagine Harry waiting for him, a slender figure on the banks of the Cam, his shoes glinting like bits of star. And then what? A train back to Brentwood in the early hours of the morning, the words he hadn’t at first believed seeping into his heart like poison, tainting all the memories Zayn had clutched like precious things through these long, empty months? Zayn had ruined everything.

Zayn opened his mouth to say something—anything—and burst into tears. It was messy and mortifying, and he’d had no idea he was still capable of it. Pressing both hands to his mouth in a futile effort to stifle his sobs, Zayn spun away from Harry. But the more Zayn tried to compose himself, the less he succeeded, and the worse it all became. “Oh God. Oh God. I’m so sorry.” It came out a damp and hopeless garble.

Zayn’s life had been little more than a parade of indignities. Mania. Institutionalisation. Drugs. ECT. Depressions so deep they have flayed his humanity to shreds and patches. The times he’d wanted to die. The times he’d tried. The doctor who sewed up his arms without anaesthetic to impress upon him the stupidity of what he had tried to do.

Yet they all paled to this: weeping his wretched heart out in front of a man who no longer wanted him.

Then Harry came up behind him and wrapped his arms tightly around his shaking body. It was familiar and perfect and unbearable. For his sanity’s sake, Zayn should have pulled away, but he didn’t. He leaned back against Harry, like a masochist onto a blade. Zayn took a deep, shuddering breath. “You don’t have to.”

“Babe, I’m not gonna stand there like a lemon and watch you cry.”

“I think”—Zayn’s voice wavered—“I’m done now.”

He wasn’t done, not by a long shot. But Harry held him through it. And told him everything was alright, even though nothing was.

Finally, they were just holding each other, and Zayn had no idea what it meant, or what was going to happen next.

Very gently, Harry drew away. Zayn clutched for him but he shook his head. “I gotta.” They faced each other again, across a distance that suddenly felt more like miles. Harry’s eyes had that haunted look Zayn had seen earlier. “Listen, I know you feel proper bad about what happened. But you don’t have to cos it’s . . . like happened. And it was nice of you coming around to say sorry, even though it took you like forever, cos you didn’t have to do that ever.” He took a deep breath. “But I think maybe you should go now.”

Oh God. Oh fuck. Oh no.

Zayn had known Harry wouldn’t want anything to do with him. He’d known. And, yet, somehow he’d come here anyway, led astray by a treacherous will-o’-the-wisp that had felt like hope. Zayn’s heart did something private and melodramatic that he thought might be breaking. “But I haven’t explained,” he pleaded, as though he had any right to keep talking to Harry when he’d already told Zayn he wanted him gone. “Or told you how much . . . how much you mean to me.”

Harry had gone back to refusing to look at me. “Mate, I don’t think I care. You don’t know what it’s like for me, having you here, knowing exactly what you think of me.”

The words tumbled out, immediate and desperate. “You’ve got it wrong. I don’t think like that. Please let me—”

“Zayn”—God, his name sounded so strange on Zayn’s lips. He would have spun his soul into gold to hear Harry call him “babe” again—“I don’t want you here. Don’t you get it? You’re doing my head in cos I know you think I’m an idiot, and I think you might be right cos I still care about you even after what you’ve done.”

I still care about you was all Zayn needed to get him across the room as though his feet had sprouted wings, but Harry shied back like a startled colt, and Zayn pulled up short. Touching him was something else Zayn could no longer take for granted. Zayn tried to explain instead, terrified it would not be enough. “I know I’ve treated you badly, and I know I have no right to ask anything more of you, but I’m here because I still care as well.”

“Still care?” Harry blinked. “Mate, if you cared the first time around, you had a funny way of showing it.”

“I know. But . . . but if you’ll let me, I’d like to show you now.”

Harry gasped. “This is my mum’s house.”

“God, no, not like that. I meant, you know, with words.”

“Oh right. Sorry. It’s just the one thing I knew you were proper into.”

Zayn winced. “I was into all of it. Yes, I loved fuc—” Harry gave him a stern look. “—having sex with you. But you cooked for me. And you talked to me. And you held me. And you made me feel everything was going to be all right, somehow, even when I was most afraid it wasn’t.”

Harry’s head drooped. “I dunno. Maybe. I dunno. Thing is, I don’t think you ever liked me the way I liked you.” Zayn opened his mouth to speak but Harry held up his hand, and Zayn fell silent. “I should’ve known right from the start something was off, what with someone like you liking someone like me.” Harry chewed his lip. “Cos I know I’m like . . . ah, what’s the word? Like what olives are like. Acquired taste. Cos I’m sort of a bit orange, and I think I’m sometimes probably a bit shallow, and I spend like literally all of my money on clothes. But with you, it was like, if this clever, sexy bloke can see something in me worth having, then maybe I’m alright.”

“Harry, you’re more than all right. You’re—” Zayn looked up wildly. “—amazin.”

“But,” Harry finished, ignoring him, “all you ever saw was a bargain basement bang.”

He was so right and so wrong. Zayn had certainly treated Harry like one. “No. I mean. At first. But, Harry, only at first. And maybe not even then. In Brighton, you were just supposed to be a stranger, but I kept seeing you, and then I wanted you, not the stranger.”

Harry smiled then, but it was not a happy smile, and Zayn missed his glittering pirate grin with an intensity that made his eyes burn with fresh tears. “Brighton, eh. I’d never met anyone like you. You were like so sad, I just wanted to make you smile.”

Zayn reached out in desperation and took his hand. Harry didn’t resist, but he didn’t participate either. Zayn’s fingers curled around his, begging for a response. “I’ve never met anyone like you either.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”

“Harry, please, I don’t know how many times I can tell you—”

“Well,” Harry cut in sharply, “I dunno if you noticed, but I’m a bit thick so you might have to say stuff slow and use small words.”

What had he done? If Zayn hadn’t been clinging to Harry, he might have slumped to the floor with the sheer misery of it all. “I don’t think you’re stupid. I know I’ve made you think I do, but I don’t, I don’t, I never did, and you’re breaking my fucking heart.” Zayn dashed fresh moisture from his eyes with the heel of his spare hand. “Will you stop it?”

Suddenly his fingers tightened around Zayn’s. “Aw babe, I’m sorry, don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying,” Zayn wept. “I’m just frustrated. I keep trying to tell you, but you won’t listen, and you won’t believe me.”

Harry sighed. “I know I said I wasn’t, but I’m a bit narked, okay? I can’t help it. And, like, confused as well.” His thumb moved absently over the back of Zayn’s hand, as though Harry couldn’t help but try to soothe him. “Cos it’s been months. And you show up here out of nowhere, with no warning, no nothing to tell me . . . I still dunno what. That I’ve spent all this time getting over you for no reason cos it was all a big mistake?”

Zayn crept forward another step, his body aligning to Harry’s, not quite touching but on a technicality only. “I-I know what I said at the wedding, and I know I treated you like you didn’t matter.” Zayn swallowed, struggling with his truths, and staring instead at their entangled hands.

“Yeah?” Harry’s voice was as gentle as the brush of his thumb against Zayn’s skin.

“It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t that I didn’t care.” Zayn bent his head and swiftly kissed the muddle of fingers, half expecting Harry would pull away, but he didn’t. “I cared too much.” Zayn’s courage, usually the most faltering and unreliable of flames, flickered into sudden life, and he looked up. It was as though Harry had been waiting for him, his eyes so steady on Zayn’s and as infinitely green as the promise of a full forest. “I was terrified, okay? Because of how happy you made me, and how much you made me feel.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Wish you’d just come after me, babe.”

“So do I.”

“Then why,” Harry’s voice rose, “the fuck didn’t you?” Shock flashed across his face, most likely mirrored on Zayn’s own, because it was the only time Zayn had ever heard him swear. Then Harry pulled himself out of Zayn’s grasp and reeled away. “I was right there,” Harry finished, not looking at him. “And then I was right here.” Harry took a few loud, slightly unsteady breaths.

How heedlessly and how deeply Zayn had hurt Harry, too preoccupied, as ever, with his own pain and uncertainties. Zayn wanted to go after him again, as if holding him physically could somehow bridge these other chasms, but Zayn had already spent too long thinking only about what he wanted. He looked after Harry helplessly. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Harry turned back slowly and then shrugged. “You really did, you know.”

“I know.” Zayn twisted his bereft fingers together. “I just wanted you so much that I thought I didn’t deserve to have you.”

“I’m not a Scooby Snack, mate.” Harry frowned at him. “It isn’t up to you whenever you get to have me or not.”

“I know. It was fucked-up and unfair.” Zayn tapped the side of his head. “Kind of mental, remember? But I know that doesn’t make it any better.” He met Harry’s gaze and tried not to flinch. “But now it’s up to you, Harry.”

“What is?”

Could Zayn bear the rejection? Probably not, but he had come this far. For Harry. Zayn could do this for him.

One right thing. Let me do one right thing.

Harry held him in the green horizon of his eyes, and Zayn wasn’t sure if he was drowning or flying, if he jumped or if he fell. “Whether you forgive. And”—oh God—“whether you get to have me.” Oh God. “Or not.”

Harry’s expression barely changed, but there it was. Finally. Some curve of his lip or the brightness in his eyes, like the gleam of light at the heart of a pearl. His Harry. The man Zayn wanted. The man who wanted him.

Zayn rushed on. “I know I have no right to be here, I know I have no right to ask, but I just thought if I came and . . . stood in front of you, and explained, and tried not to fuck it all up too badly, you’d see that I . . . really like you, I’ve always really liked you, even when I’ve been awful, and, really, I’m just standing in front of you, asking you to—oh, shitting hell.” Where the fuck had that come from? Even if Zayn was the sort of man to make those sort of declarations, he’d like to hope he’d at least use his own words and not those of a cheesy romcom from the late nineties.

But Harry’s face lit up like Christmas. “Aww, I love that film.” He gazed at Zayn expectantly. “Go on, then.”

“Um. What? I’ve sort of finished.”

“Babe, you haven’t finished, and I’ve been waiting for this all my life.”

Zayn coughed. “You’ve been waiting all your life for a bipolar depressive to completely fuck up his relationship with you, and then take the best part of half a year to tell you he’s sorry?”

“I could’ve done without that bit, thanks. But I do wanna know I wasn’t just being stupid all that time for thinking you were into me.”

Oh God. Zayn finally understood what Harry wanted. He wanted to actually hear the words. And, until he did, all Zayn’s apologies and explanations weren’t worth a damn to him. It was an absurd situation, as usual, but Zayn shouldn’t have been surprised to find himself in it.

“Harry,” he said, “Roland Barthes argued that a phrase as commonly used as the one I think we’re discussing is essentially a meaningless signifier.”

Harry blinked. “Right?”

“A linguistic feint, a formula stripped of ritual, neither a thing uttered nor an utterance itself. In short, as a statement, it’s without value, and as a promise, it’s without depth.”

“Babe?”

“Yes?”

“I know you really like this Barfs geeza, but I’m telling you, as like a favour from me to you, this really isn’t the time.”

“But—”

“It doesn’t have to be forever or anything. It just has to be like possible, do you know what I mean?”

Zayn twisted his fingers together, his nails pressing rictus grins into Zayn’s flesh. “Why? Why does it even matter?”

Harry stepped back across the space between them. He reached out and gently caught up Zayn’s hands, holding them between them as though in prayer. Zayn certainly felt enough like a supplicant. Harry’s palms glided across his skin until they pushed back his cuffs and encircled his wrists, his twin scars.

There was no reason why it should have, but it calmed Zayn, like the weight of Harry’s body covering his. Mindless, Zayn made a soft noise into the silence, and he heard Harry’s breath catch in his throat. Somehow, all the distance was gone, their bodies pressing together on either side of Zayn’s trapped hands. “Cos it does. It matters to me. If you really think you feel something like that for me, even after everything that’s happened, then I wanna hear it.”

“Fine.” Zayn tried to sound grudging, but it was impossible. Harry believed him. He was close to Zayn. Harry was touching him.

“But only if you mean it.”

Zayn closed his eyes, thinking of nothing but the warmth of Harry’s hands. The glitter on Harry’s nails danced in his darkness like dust motes. “How can I know if I mean it?”

“Cos you’ll know.”

“I do know,” Zayn whispered, “that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He opened his eyes again and there was Harry, waiting for him, through his evasions and hesitations, just as he’d waited one long night in Cambridge. Except, this time, Zayn would not fail him. Zayn would deserve him, somehow. “Whatever you decide, I need you to know that.”

Harry nodded. “Alright.”

Harry’s hands were so warm. Zayn never wanted him to take them away, but there was nothing he could do to hold Harry there, except hope and trust he would stay. “And I need you to know that if you send me away, I’ll go, and I’ll be fine. I’ll be sad, but I’ll be fine. I’ll live and I’ll write and I’ll miss you and think about you, and, truthfully, I’ll probably wank over you, and I’ll be depressed sometimes and mad sometimes, but you won’t have to worry because I’ll be fine. I never used to believe it, but I know it now.”

Harry dipped his head to kiss Zayn’s trembling fingers, and the scent of his hair gel rushed over Zayn, so familiar Zayn might have cried had he not done enough of it today to last him the rest of his life. “I know you will, babe.”

“But I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to be with you, if you still want to be with me. If you can still find something worth wanting.” Zayn fought to sound normal but his every breath felt like a shudder. He could have stopped there, perhaps he should have, but he’d promised Harry everything. Even the ugliness. Even the truth. “Harry, I’m still mentally ill. I’ll always be mentally ill. I have bad days and good days and very very bad days. Maybe you won’t be able handle it—”

Harry silenced him with the lightest of kisses. “That’s up to me, babe.”

Zayn shuddered on the sweetness of it, yet still afraid. “Okay.”

“We can figure it out.”

“Okay.”

Harry’s thumbs were tucked against Zayn’s palms and Zayn wrapped his fingers over them, squeezing tightly, knowing at last how to say what he had to say. “I’m not here because I’m broken. I’m here because I’m whole. Difficult, potentially undeserving, but whole. And I don’t need you, I just want you. I want you”—his voice had gone embarrassingly husky—“so fucking much. And—” Another breath, another breath. “—maybe I love you. Or could love you. Or might love you. Or may come to love you.” There was a dizzy rushing in his brain, as though Zayn was about to faint or have a nosebleed. “Or whatever.”

“Aw, babe.” Harry was grinning at him. “You’re totally romantic.”

Zayn stared at him, stunned and horrified. “Oh God, it’s true. I do. I actually love you. I really do.” He laughed. Not entirely without hysteria. “I love you.”

“Yeah.” Harry nodded sagely. “I thought you did. Then I thought you didn’t. Then I thought you really didn’t. Then I thought you did again. It’s all good, babe.”

Zayn leaned into him, because maybe he could do that now. It was awkward because Harry still had his hands, but Zayn didn’t care. He could keep them, forever if he wanted, as long as they could stay like this. Foolish thoughts, because everything changes, always, even—apparently—Zayn.

“Is it?” Zayn asked, suddenly too exhausted by tears and truths, too much emotion and frightening four-letter words to quite believe it might be. “Is it really all good?”

“Yeah. You know I think you’re amazing.”

“I’m sorry I’m such an utter wanker.”

“Aww, babe, you’re not really. You just pretend you are for some reason. I dunno why. Cos you’re a bit weird sometimes, I think.”

Zayn nodded. That was a fair assessment of his character. And more generous than anything Zayn himself would have said, or thought.

Harry’s hands slackened on his wrists and Zayn looked up to see he was frowning again. Zayn groaned. “Oh fuck, what do you want now? The moon on a stick?”

Harry still didn’t smile, and fresh anxiety slipped down Zayn’s spine like a silver blade. “Do you mean it, babe? About wanting to be with me. About maybe possibly maybe maybe maybe being in love with me? Everything you said before?”

Sheer, giddy relief expressed itself in exasperation. “Of course I fucking meant it. Do you think I just carved my heart into pieces for shits and giggles?”

“Calm down.” Now Harry grinned, that beautiful, generous, absurdly glittering grin. “I was just checking. Cos, you know, even though it’s a totally meaningless linguistic fart—”

“Feint.”

“Yeah, that. I thought you might maybe wanna know—”

“That’s not necessary.”

“—I might feel like being in love with you too one day. Y’know, if you ever learn how to use a cheese grater properly.”

“No deal.”

But it was no use. The idea had taken root like a weed. Harry Styles might one day feel like being in love with Zayn. Like everything else in his life, it was nothing Zayn would ever have thought he wanted, but he would learn to cherish it. Maybe the day would come that depression would take Harry away from him—one way or another—but for now, it was enough. More than enough. More than Zayn could have dreamed possible.

Harry was looking serious again. “So, lemme get this right. We’re gonna make a go of it. You and me? Together? Even though I’m orange and you’re mental?”

“Yes,” Zayn said. “Yes, please.”

And Zayn, once again, threw himself enthusiastically into the embrace of a man in a Union Jack onesie. Harry’s arms enfolded him, sweeping Zayn into his warmth, and Zayn pressed his face into the safe darkness of his shoulder. “I can’t promise it’ll be simple. I can’t promise there’s any future in it, and I certainly can’t promise I’ll watch Strictly Come Dancing with you—” He gave a horrified gasp. “—but I will try. I know I don’t deserve it, but please let me try.”

“Yeah.” Zayn heard the familiar smile in his voice. “Alright.”


End file.
